Aspi's Drift

Kambakkht Ishq: Its all about men!

2009-07-07T00:01:00.022-05:00

There are two things about Kambakkht Ishq that you need to know.

First, avoid taking your kids to this movie. Not because of the sex and violence - both of which are quite comical and nothing that would make Disney channel regulars bat an eyelid. But because most of us have spent so much time teaching our kids about gender equality. Why turn the clock back and do untold damage to those young minds? So, avoid for kids.

Kambakkht Ishq is all about men. Don't believe me? Listen to this.

Actor: Akshay Kumar
Role: MAN slut

Akshay Kumar in a reprise of his role in Heyy Babyy - is a man slut. He sleeps around constantly. He hits on almost anyone in a skirt - unless that skirt happens to be worn by a big, black woman. He pretty much hates the opposite sex - using them as self serving objects to power his machismo. Early on in the movie, he is confronted by two girlfriends. From the sidelines Brandon Routh wonders "how will he get out of this one?". Akki's chamchaa answers "Practice!"

Akshay strikes up a near murderous relationship with Kareena but at a crucial moment has a change of heart. This change of heart is brought on by Kareena snuggling up to him in a little girl voice and seeking assurance that he is not 'like other men'. Yes, scores of other women dumped by Akshay couldn't figure out that all you had to do to tame the man was to act underage.

Actor: Kareena Kapoor
Role: MAN hater

Kareena hates men - ostensibly because of the divorces of her mum and sister, for whom she blames the men. She is a surgeon in making, paying for her med school by modelling on the side. At one point she slices and dices Akshay Kumar's lower intestines. This scene was much fun to watch although it could have been better if Akshay's lines - which were meant to be jokes - had been cut.

But with two major careers at hand, Kareena's taming and subsequent happiness requires a man. A truly worthy one at that. Who could that be? You guessed it! Man Slut!

Actor: Amrita Arora
Role: MANtally challenged

Amrita doesn't know much about men - although the same could be said about her in other areas of life. She takes advice from Kareena and withholds sex from her new husband. Later, when she discovers her husband with his pants down at a major makeout club, she inexplicably tapes almost all the objects in her house with blue plumber's tape. Don't ask!

Actor: Denise Richards
Role: Maneater

Denise Richards - the "mega" Hollywood star in this movie - plays a couger. And I say this only because she looks more trashed out than Akki himself. She strikes up a relationship with Man slut and goes shopping with him - which has since resulted in real life admiration. But because she spends most of her time sleeping with Akki - which as anyone will tell you is terribly inappropriate behavior for women - she has to dumped. At the altar, no less.

Kareena and Akki both spend some time making kachra of her in the movie. This, I admit, was fun to watch.

Actor: Sylvestor Stallone
Role: Man mower

Stallone's face in this movie looks like its been constructed from billowy cotton balls. He hands an award to Akki for Stuntman of the year - prompting a hysterical 'small town boy makes good' speech from Akshay. Later he beats up a bunch of really bad goondas who just happen to be all black men. First he pins them to a wall by pushing a car against them with his bare hands. Then he rips out a parking meter and swings it around. This earns him the undying gratitude of Kareena and Amrita.

Actor: Kiron Kher
Role: Man search engine

Kiron plays Kareena's aunt - who like any good aunt - is constantly trying to get Kareena hitched. At a crucial juncture Kiron reveals that Kareena's parents' broken relationship was her mum's fault. After some delicious overacting, Kiron delivers this bit of information out of the blue and in a trembling dialog. This, I also admit, was much fun to watch and elicited many chuckles from me.

Which brings me to the second thing you need to know. There are only two ways to really sit through this movie: consume lots of alcohol beforehand or have a friend chain you to the seat.

Fashion Revisited: The fate of Bad Girls in Bollywood

2009-07-02T00:01:00.018-05:00

There used to be a time in Bollywood when bad girls were depicted doing some scandalous things. These scandalous things were used not just to help us identify the bad girl but also give us an indication of the extent of her badness.

Secretly I used to dig them - the real reason I hated villains was that they had access to these girls and never quite appreciated them fully. I loved Komila Wirk. I worshipped Helen. I wanted to be Bindu's neighbor.

What did these bad girls do in movies that condemned them to a horrible fate - like say a bullet in their heaving bosoms or the leering attention of people like Madan Puri? Several things including but not limited to:

Wearing a short skirt
Showing some cleavage
Smoking a cigarette
Sipping sharaab
Doing a caberet
Possessing hazel eyes
Seductively draping self over a couch, floor or other horizontal surface
And the doozy: Cozying up to Ranjeet

These days no one would bat an eyelid if the grand behenji of Bollywood heroines - Gracy Singh herself - did all of the above. In the first half of a movie! Ok, well maybe not all of them - but you get my point.

Still as were the demands of society and cinema (or both), bad girls needed to be taught a lesson and most used to perish faster than the token black guy in Star Trek.

Sometimes they had a change of heart, but it came too late and they still had to kick the bucket - usually after taking a knife in the spleen intended for someone else.

A lot of guys who did bad things (or guys who had 'strayed' during the course of a movie) got to make a comeback and end the story with a happily ever after. This cinematic journey, sadly, wasn't available to bad girls in mass market movies. More than the gender inequality of it - I've always felt that this made for rather predictable and hence boring cinema.

Which is why, despite its unevenness, I enjoyed watching Fashion - Madhur Bhandarkar's barbed wire bouquet to the Indian Fashion industry.

Fashion has a very ghisa pita, but well tested nevertheless, story - a grounded, middle-class girl (Meghna Mathur) played by Priyanka Chopra arrives in Mumbai with dreams of becoming a super model. She struggles. She tries really hard with mixed results (this comment would also apply to Priyanka's acting).

Through a series of fortunate events (and one smoking bod) she makes it big. She compromises. She begins a downward spiral - first personally and then professionally. She unravels. Finally, down in the dumps, she takes time off to reflect. She makes a comeback.

But does she still have what it takes? Does she still have the talent to sashay about 30 steps, turn and matkofy back again? Bhais ki poonch! If only Priyanka had to land an F-16 on a skating rink or cure cancer instead. But I digress. Back to the point I was trying to make.

In Fashion, Priyanka becomes a bad girl for a while. She does innumerable bad things. Yet in the end, she is able to put it all behind her and becomes a star again. Everyone welcomes her back with open arms.

Sure there is another girl (Kangana Ranaut) who tries the same thing and meets a rather unforgiving end. And Priyanka does have to go back to being somewhat goody two shoes again before she is allowed into the cozy folds of happily ever after.

But all progress can't be measured by a yardstick. Sometimes an inch ruler has to suffice.

I realize this progress could only further reinforce the slutty girlfriend who is expected to become a virginal savitri after marriage stereotype. Which is why I'd like to make a binati to Fashion's filmmaker.

Madhur, I'd like you to make a movie called "Shaadi" - a ceremony that has reached such nutty proportions of made up riwaaz, commerce and dikhawa that its ripe for satire. I suggest at least one character who is a wild child wife who does all kinds of crazy things and totally gets away with it.

Be sure to cast Gracy Singh.

Anu Malik, lift teri band hai! Here's how to get it going again

2009-06-26T00:03:00.002-05:00

Is Anu Malik important in Indian filmi music? Yes! The reason is that he combines a certain brashness, a little bit of crazy, a fierce sense of competitiveness and undeniable talent in one package that is hard to find among music composers.

Is Anu Malik still relevant in Indian filmi music? Increasingly less so! We've discussed Anu's choppiness before when reviewing Love Story 2050 - his last major studio release. His long awaited soundtrack to the Kareena-Akshay starrer Kambakkht Ishq provides another data point.

Its a hugely interesting one - because Anu comes to the party armed with a bunch of gorgeous tunes. Yet they all sound average when laid to music. The reason is simple: Anu's production and musical arrangements sound forced or dated or both.

Take the signature track of this CD: Bebo. Anu has a great tune at hand. He's hired Alisha Chinai to sing the song and by all accounts she sounds flirtatious, fresh and hugely tuney. But it's all laid over pumping, plastic disco beats with little or no variety. This happens again on the title track - Kambakkht Ishq (KK, Sunidhi). The production tastes like a pop tart - throwaway breakfast food with way too much synth sugar.

So what can Anu Malik do to regain his mojo back? I have some phaltu Drift advice to offer.

Listen to RDB's track Om Mangalam on the same CD. It's not exactly a barn buster, but its still interesting. It's important to break up a tune in parts and divert it to a different hook. Straight tunes that play end to end can be done only once on a CD, the days of Laxmi-Pyare are long gone now. Also please note, rap isn't the only game in town when trying to spruce up a song.

Stop composing songs on the keyboard. Use a guitar or get someone who can play one. This will help get some string instruments into the composition. You know the usual suspects - guitar, flutes, violins, heck even a cello? They can make a song sound organic, fresh and uncluttered. Can you imagine a few of these on the gorgeous Kyun (KK, Shreya Ghoshal) and how it would have made the song fly instead of making it sound like it was straining at the leash?

Construct your percussion carefully. In other words, get rid of the programmed drum machines, programmed maracas and programmed claps and have people actually beat some skin (or hit on some tin maybe). Whenever you are lost for ideas - combine a few sounds! Vishal-Shekhar's Tashan remains the landmark CD in terms of diverse and interesting percussion. Spin it a few times and take notes will you?

Now, get to work Anu - I want you back!

You can listen to the Kambakkht Ishq songs on Dhingana

The Shiney Ahuja Defense

2009-06-24T00:01:00.016-05:00

Famous - particularly famously loopy - courtroom defenses get their own names.

Why just the other day I was watching Milk. The end credits mentioned that the lawyers of Dan White who shot San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk in 1978 put forth the theory that a bad diet of junk food had resulted in a mental imbalance in the accused. This subsequently came to be known as the Twinkie Defense.

Bollywood needs something silly and entertaining like this. And far be it from me to judge a man who still hasn't made it into court - but this whole Shiney Ahuja circus has me fascinated.

Not so much for the hoopla it is causing - charges of this nature should carry this kind of focus. But the way the press has been hounding the police and trying to get statements out of everyone. Why at one point someone even dragged Pooja Bedi in for a statement - because, you know, Pooja's sometime partner (Aditya Pancholi) had cheated on her with a maid in the past. I suspect Shiney's embattled wife was cornered into stating that rape isn't a gender issue.

While we wait for justice to bubble to the top (and I recognize justice is a subjective word by all means), a police statement about Shiney's breakdown and subsequent confession amused me no end.

Apparently after his admittance to the rape charge, Shiney was asked why he did it. He allegedly said (more or less) that he had no idea it would be such a big deal. Yes, you heard that right.

I would hereby like to name this technique The Shiney Ahuja Defense. Whenever you're in trouble, you basically say: "Crap. I had no idea I was doing something bad!"

It's extremely useful. Look at the all the ways The Shiney Ahuja Defense can be used.

"Yaar ok so I put my foot in my mouth repeatedly and insulted my leading lady. I had no idea it was such a big deal!"

"I lost my cool at my host and dumped a bunch of maa-behen gaalis on him, almost splitting up Bollywood and starting a cold war that could span a dynasty. Tau kya hua bay?!

"Its true I made out with Christian Ronaldo while I still had a boyfriend. Why is that such a big deal!?"

"Bhai, that director wouldn't make a movie with my hard earned smuggler's cash. So I had a supari taken out on him. What's the big deal!?"

"I made fun of my girlfriend and endlessly humiliated her on national TV. I had no idea that was a bad thing to do!"

Dissing Ka Dum: Why Salman behaving badly makes compelling TV

2009-06-23T00:01:00.001-05:00

(A lot of the Sallu-Kat analysis in this post done by our resident Love-Chakker guru Mind Rush)

Salman Khan gets a lot of rap for having a temper that is not entirely in his control. But after watching the hugely compelling first few episodes of his cornflake of a contest-show Dus Ka Dum, I'd like to offer an alternative hypothesis: Salman Khan is a man who has a sense of humor that is not entirely in his control.

Having a rampant sense of humor isn't bad in and of itself - but once you see Salman unable to control himself going hammer and tongs at his guests you begin to realize how he got himself into that huge fight with SRK. Or for that matter why his girl Katrina Kaif is always rolling her eyes at him whenever they make an appearance on TV together. But more on that later.

First, a brief roundup of DKD this season. Two guests show up - usually both have something in common, like they are family or they have a movie to promote. Salman asks them one question each, usually based on some bogus poll. The pair play best of five - the winner plays Salman one on one. Salman asks ten questions of the same flavor - each question gets the contestant closer to Rs 10 crores.

There are more rules, but these are all you need to know for now.

Salman basically hosts this show like a rapscallion. He is the dildaar types who is so friendly with everyone that he is on backslapping terms with them all.

Often he'll throw in insider jokes that we may not fully understand. Sometimes, shrewdly he'll bring up a nascent controversy and make a joke about it. Almost always, he'll irritate his celebrity guests. And the joke is that often the joke is on him - he seems to have some fleeting clue that his guests are getting agitated. But he seems to believe this is part of his persona - you only get Salman in wild, bitter shots: take it or leave it. It is a testimony to Salman's celebrity in Bollywood that most choose to take it.

All of this creates a hugely entertaining show - Salman himself seems to be having a ball. And I love watching it simply because I want to see what he'll do next. His guests also react in suitably loopy ways.

Take the Daler Mehndi-Mika Singh episode for instance. Salman asked the two brothers a bunch of tractor-wala type questions. At one point he asked 'How many men believe that alchohol makes them more out of control' (or something similar). Mike put on his straightest face and said 'When people drink, they tend to get more on their guard - so chances of bad behavior are reduced'. No one seemed to take this seriously. How do I know? Because both Salman and older brother Daler burst out laughing immediately. Chastised thus, Mika blurted out a story about how he gate crashed Yuvraj Singh's birthday party once under the influence.

Later yet, Salman asked Daler 'How many men are turned on by their bhaabhis?'. Mika raised his hands and offered this from the sidelines "I love my bhaabhi!". Daler's retort came immediately - "Your place is at your bhaabhi's feet!"

But DKD really shines when a Salman ka jaana-pehchaana celeb shows up - as was the case with sisters Kareena and Karishma or better yet, Katrina Kaif (along with Neil Nitin Mukesh).

Constantly ribbing, infantalizing and at times humiliating Katrina, Salman gave us his version of Girls Gone Wild. One sharply representative example came when he asked Katrina about any media blown controversies between her and her costars. When Katrina chose to clear the air between her and Bips, Salman silently laughed into his palm.

Katrina reacted suitably - she rolled her eyes at his jokes, often making it clear that she wasn't happy at all. She reacted warmly to her costar and fellow competitor Neil Nitin Mukesh - her body language with him was easy, even eager. Salman, on the other hand, was at the receiving end of some very unenthusiastic reactions from Katrina.

After the first few times I thought surely a man in his forties has seen life enough that he gets the point. Happily for my entertainment, Salman isn't one of those. He kept at it - often playacting so much that he made Sushmita Sen look minimalist.

One of the truly fun things about DKD is that the questions are closely and uncompromisingly aligned with the life of the contestant. (Daler was asked if Rakhi Sawant would make a suitable wife - in light of that nutty Mika-Rakhi controversy). In the Katrina episode, Salman threw out some delicious questions about commitment and marriage proposals. To be fair, he didn't spare himself. At one point, he strutted around and asked the audience with a hurt face "Why would any woman ever turn down a proposal by a man?"

Katrina tightened her face muscles and said nothing. Later she got distinctly prickly - castigating Salman for being a homebody when it came to planning vacations.

All through this it took gigantic grace and an inborn talent for diplomacy for the third cog in the wheel to stay in the game with these two. And I would like to report that Neil Nitin Mukesh displayed both in abundance to emerge unscathed from all this. Salman called on him to do a few imitations and then demanded "Shahrukh!"

"He'll get me killed for this" fretted Neil.

"Yes!" said a visibly exasperated Katrina.

Not only did Neil proceed with the SRK imitation but then shrewdly insisted on doing a Salman as well - which he nailed.

Hilarity!

The Horror! Why 13B is the best movie Ekta Kapoor never made

2009-06-19T18:11:00.005-05:00

In 13B - writer-director Vikram K. Kumar's blaring horror-thriller - Madhavan finds himself in a jam. He's an Indian male, but he can't stop watching a saas-bahu TV serial.

"It's a matter of life and death for me to watch it!" he informs his police officer friend - sweat pouring over his forehead, his eyes bugged out, his boyish charm appropriately kerfuffled.

The serial has everyone in Madhavan's apartment (the titular 13B) transfixed. No one - it seems - can stop watching it. Disaster after disaster befalls the kutumb in 13B. At one point Madhavan leaves his wife behind in critical condition and speeds through the streets of Mumbai just so he can make it to watch another episode. Yet he won't turn the darned thing off! In fact, I'm pretty sure he doesn't even hold his job down just so he can watch the serial.

Somewhere in the background you can hear Ekta Kapoor telling her minions - YEH SERIAL KI SCRIPT MUJHE KISSI BHI KEEMAT PE CHAHIYE!

Unfortunately the serial (called Sab Khariyat in the movie - but also known as 'Mother Lode' over at Balaji Telefilms) is an entirely concocted one. You see the serial is only broadcast in Madhavan's apartment. Turning the TV off is not an option - the remote doesn't work while its on. Why, one guy even has the brainwave of unplugging the TV. Nope, the serial still plays.

How can this happen, you might ask? Use your imagination! Bhoot-pret, baby!

However, telling you more will only result in spoilers that will ruin your enjoyment of this awesome guilty pleasure. Instead, I'd like to offer phaltu Drift advice to horror filmmakers (and I'm strictly talking about the genre here, not the resulting movie)

Rooting the movie in reality. Sure this whole 'lost souls' concept requires a leap of faith - kind of like superheroes. But more so in a movie that requires an audience to swallow a high concept - you have to ground everything else in as much reality as possible. Events around the high concept have to make sense.

So for example: if the neighbors of a house are nosy enough that they'd collect around the house when a new TV was being installed, they can't all become invisible when someone drags a dead body into same house. Vikram Kumar made the characters in his movie act in sensible ways, but he created such unrealistic situations that it entirely de-glossed his movie.

No expository dialog please! This has been the bane of Indian filmmakers for generations now. Its a result of assuming your audiences are dumb. Because filmmakers are afraid their audiences won't get their pecheeda plots - they offer is a scene in which a character will painstakingly paraphrase everything you've been watching and then will help you read between the lines as well. This construct almost always kills the pace of the movie.

In 13B, the grating expository scene has a bhoot talking directly to her offender via the TV. This is nuts in this day and age - the audience that doesn't get it in your movie won't be there to watch it. So why waste time and insult the rest of those who show up?

More of that great set design - but enough with the dhund! Let me put it this way: lighting a house in a spooky way - B+. Setting a smoke machine loose all over it just because you can - C.

Continue to overdo the crazy camera angles! I love this aspect of a horror movie. Often I analyze the camera angles and speculate where the surprise will come from in a shot. This time pass allows me to survive the scariest scenes. In one scene in which a bhayanak possibility is revealed, the camera starts jagging back and forth - do doubt mimicking the motion of a serial killer sawing his victim's head off.

The motivation has to match the crime. Remember Rock On!! and how a matter of fisticuffs resulted in life-long friends breaking up and ignoring each other for years? Even though it might have been known to have happened, it just doesn't look good on film. If something terrible has happened in a film, the reasons for it to have happened better be terrible. You can't have someone drive a car off a cliff just because they didn't like the color of its upholstery. Not that it happens in 13B, I'm just saying.

Also don't miss:

The trailer of 13B
13B's promo video - Madhavan prances around with red corneas and sings 'Oh Sexy Mama - won't you do the Sa Re Ga Ma" (Baba Sehgal, Anushka Manchanda, Loy Mendosa)
Vikram K. Kumar talks about the movie and how he filmed it in both Tamil and Hindi

The Drift Humanitarian Award: Sajid Wajid for Paying Guests

2009-06-10T00:01:00.004-05:00

The Bollywood strike has ended (interesting numbers quoted here). Normally given the kind of cinematic riff raff that Bollywood puts out, I wouldn't have broken my stride. But afsos, it also affected music releases.

Why, one would ask. Because music plays such a big factor in Bollywood that it kicks off the accompanying publicity junket. If a movie isn't being released, the music is also on hold.

This led to general starvation for someone like me who is more into the music than the movies. On the other hand, it presented an opportunity to catch up with everything else. Thus, I listened to my Gnarls Barkley CDs with more attention than usual. Against all odds, I fell in major like with Mandy Moore's new CD. My player chunked its way through The Ting Tings, The Kills, Metric. I discovered Kanye West. I revisited the ground breaking trip hop of Massive Attack and unique rat-a-tat percussion of Metallica. I marvelled at the manufactured fall from grace of the musicians in Tinted Windows. I even broke out my Jamiroquai CDs which I'd sworn I'd mothball forever.

All this was good - but I did keep in touch with the trickle of releases coming in from Bollywood. These movies tried to squeeze in and take advantage of the strike. Brave, opportunistic producers. I salute them - too bad their product belly flopped. I haven't seen the movies but the music was unexceptional.

However, as per Drift policy, fun must be squeezed out of any opportunity that presents itself. So I decided to hand out the Drift Bollywood Music Famine Humanitarian Award. This goes to the composers of the CD released during the strike that annoyed me the least - heck, after a few spins I even enjoyed it.

The award goes to Sajid-Wajid's work for the movie Paying Guests. This movie is an Indian comedy - yes, that means there are chaatas and cross-dressing (or I could just tell you the flick stars that doyen of Indian comedy - Celina Jaitley).

Sajid Wajid are interesting composers and hence worth a brief discussion. They are very commercial, they are excellent with hooks and they recreate the big baaja 70s era of Laxmikant Pyarelal. In other words, they are today's nod to Bollywood's musical legacy. Often their tunes settle into incredibly catchy but somewhat familiar hooks. A huge fondness for shaadi-baarat instruments pervade their musical arrangements.

It is music that is larger than life - its no coincidence that Sajid-Wajid's career skyrocketed after finding favor with Salman Khan - who projects a king-size life himself.

Paying Guests kicks off with a ditty called Jack and Jill. There are helium vocals - perfect for establishing that the music is supposed to be funny. Its definitely worth a smile after four shots of tequila. This song has two things going for it - some nifty production by Eric Pillai (including cool Island-flavored breakdowns) and the oddity by which Earl D'souza's backing vocals seem to make Shaan sound fresher than he has in years.

Wajid does vocal duties on the title song - best described as a Sajid-Wajid special: catchy, loud, playful. Here let me mention that I completely enjoy Wajid's voice and would love to hear more of it - its like someone took Mika Singh's vocal posturing, Shaan's throw and peppered it with Udit Narayan's unhurried clarity.

Sonu Nigaam - who seems to be a bit of a Sajid-Wajid favorite - sings Ya Rabula Rabbi - powered by a creamy clap percussion and easily the coolest song on the CD. I know this sounds odd to say but Sonu has the ability to inject a few smiles in his voice without compromising its quality. It works really well here. Later, Amrita Kak shows up and sings a terrific verse in a sexy, low-slung voice and pronounces the word "mehjabeen" like someone was referring to a deadly virus. Speaking of lyrics - this song's title is super misleading because clearly Sonu is singing "Yaar abbu lala me" which sounds to me like an invitation to one's father, who also happens to be one's best friend, to sing a lullaby.

Sunidhi Chauhan sings Nazar Se Nazaria - her hundredth song about a flirtatious chick who would like everyone to know how hot she is. There is a bit of rap, an Arabic flavor, plenty of Sunidhi's legendary energy - its all good. In fact, if you are a Sunidhi fan, like me, and tend to follow her work closely - there is plenty to learn here. Particularly the fact that Sunidhi pronounces certain words with a Punju accent in order to make her voice sound more kadak.

Sajid-Wajid, thanks for making this musical akaal a tolerable one!

Meet Sonia Jaffer-Fraser, kick-ass choreographer and winner, Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa 3

2009-06-05T00:04:00.004-05:00

Its hard for a non-dancer to win a dancing competition - especially one populated by good dancers. Its harder for a non-dancer to stay a non-dancer and do the same. Baichung Bhutia did it in this year's terrific season of Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa 3.

Behind every successful man is a surprised woman. No, I'm just kidding! But Baichung's magic came from his choreographer Sonia Jaffer-Fraser. Skillfully exploiting the soccer star's athleticism (note to future contestants: cartwheels impress judges), Sonia became a serious contender with one game changing dance - in which she portrayed an abused woman struggling to love again. She reduced JDJ's finest judge Vaibhavi Merchant to tears.

And as soon as she became a serious contender, against all odds Sonia took a lot of chances with her partner. How daring was she? She took one of the most beloved hits of our time - Kabhi Kabhi Aditi - and set it to a quirky, charming Karate Kid hip hop theme. Later within striking distance of the trophy, in the finale she had Baichung execute a complex, heart-stopping routine on two tables set apart.

By constantly reaching for the skies, Sonia ended up entertaining us and walking on the clouds. I invited her to share her thoughts with us on the Drift.

AspisDrift.com: Hey Sonia, congratulations on a hugely successful of JDJ. Quick, what is the first emotion that comes to mind when you look back on it? (a) Thrilled (b) Relieved (c) Redeemed (d) Thankful (c) Numb

Sonia: I look back and I feel THANKFUL!!

AspisDrift.com: Sonia, you took a lot of heart-stopping risks on JDJ and pulled all of them off. Are you a wild risk taker in real life too? You bungee jump every weekend? You dive into the water off of cliffs? You play high stakes poker every third Friday? You drive on the wrong side of the road for fun?

Sonia: I am a risk taker but not a wild one. I also take risks only in controlled environments so no, you will not find me driving on the wrong side of the road though I LOVE driving fast.

AspisDrift.com: Be honest now, were you disappointed when you found out your partner would be Baichung? Did you laugh? Did you cry? Did you say ‘Why me!?’

Sonia: When I saw him I was like WOW!! BHAICHUNG BHUTIA is MY partner. I remember the first thing I noticed about him was his hands...I knew immediately he had come down from heaven.

AspisDrift.com: Baichung seemed like a really game partner – he knew his limitations but he did all kinds of things for you. Was there anything he said ‘Absolutely Not!’ to?

Sonia: Hahaha...yeah! It was for the tapori dance round when I choreographed him on the song Guitar. I asked him to be a girl and he was like ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!!

What an expression...I kept asking him just to tease him...hahaha...

AspisDrift.com: Anything about him that drove you crazy?

Sonia: BIG TIME...he used to yawn so much in the afternoons I used to go insane. but you can't blame him. From football practice to dance rehearsal...he used to be so tired.

AspisDrift.com: Ok, we’ll get to JDJ in a bit. But I’m dying to learn more about you. Where were you born? Where did you grow up? Do you have any siblings? What was little Sonia like?

Sonia: I was born here in Mumbai. My dad is Tanzanian and my mom is Indian. I grew up in Kuwait, Dar es Salaam, Panchgani. No siblings. But I do have a step sister and two step brothers. My dad re-married.

Little Sonia was a very bored child who used to just wait to break free. Recently it hit me that the only time I break free is when I dance.

AspisDrift.com: And how did you get involved with dance?

Sonia: I had done my basics in ballet from the Royal School of Dance, London. My cousin here in India had started to dance for Suneeta Rao back in 1992...I used to watch him and pray to God to give me a show. God answered and I never looked back.

AspisDrift.com: A friend of mine in Vadodara is dying to know: what does that tattoo on your forearm say?

Sonia: I have two tatoos. (The other one is one my left wrist.) The forearm one is a scripture from the Bible - "when I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, what is man that You are mindful of him.."

AspisDrift.com: On JDJ, you choreographed a landmark dance about an abused woman rediscovering love. You made my wife cry buckets. Would you like to tell us anything about how you survived such a debilitating crisis?

Sonia: There is only one way I survived it...that was by forgiving my abuser. Then I gave up all my hurt and pain to Jesus...and he gave me beauty for my ashes..

AspisDrift.com: Ok, back to the show: what gave you the most sleepless nights?

Sonia: What gave me the most sleepless nights was the fact that Jhalak was going to get over and I would have to pick up the pieces once again and walk... :)

AspisDrift.com: As a choreographer, I’m sure there are always questions about how the judges and their scores. How do you deal with that?

Sonia: From day one I told Baichung and we maintained that: whatever the scores or comments - good, very good or bad would not affect us. I knew I could take him to the end so I wanted us to keep our focus there and nowhere else. That's why you must have seen that a high score, good remark, bad score or bad remark never made me jump or dance....

AspisDrift.com: How come Baichung and you were able to escape just about any controversy? Were you faster than all the cameras?

Sonia: There was nothing to ESCAPE! All we did was rehearse. We were not even friends. There was no time to act as friends. All our time went in teaching and him, learning. That is what is incomplete though - we never became friends.

AspisDrift.com: I’ve always wanted to know this: how does a dance come together? How do you design the theme? How do you design the moves? Who does the costumes? Who does the music mixes?

Sonia: The theme is given to us by the channel, then I see a song and a style of dance that fits. Once that is approved...I give my brief to the costume designer. I see the entire choreography in my head and then I used to break it down for Baichung.

AspisDrift.com: Do you get to take those costumes home?

Sonia: Haha...no! They belong to the channel now.

AspisDrift.com: Any status update on your Bollywood debut? What’s up with Fast Forward?

Sonia: Last I heard FF will release 10th July...but you never know

AspisDrift.com: Finally, I ask this question to everyone on the Drift: can you fold a fitted bed sheet properly? I’m convinced most regular humans can’t.

Sonia: YES I CAN...anyone who grew up in a boarding school can...

The best of Sonia and Baichung on Jhalak 3
Bas Ek Pal
Kaise Mujhe (4:20)
Their journey
Their win

Lambi Umariya! The Age of Bollywood Stars

2009-06-03T00:01:00.008-05:00

Because of the recent economic downturn, tech companies have been shuttering their windows faster than the new season of Dus Ka Dum seems to be heading for disaster. For a while the tech community was buzzing productively with all kinds of news.

Then the well dried up. Pretty soon all people could write about was Twitter and Facebook, an opportunity Ashton Kutcher maximized to play a silly and high profile stunt.

But soon enough the tech community ran out of things to say. Now what?

These days everyone wants to talk about the evolution of search. What's new in the world of search? Two things: Real time search, the type afforded by microblogging engines like Twitter. And Semantic Search, of which no clear leader seems to have emerged. Both areas are significant because they represent exploitable shortcomings in Google's technology today.

Say for example you want to search on that punk dude from American Idol. Google will give you tons of information. But let's say you are watching American Idol and just when someone was about to get eliminated, your TV went on the blink. You run to your computer and searched for the results. Chances are they won't be on Google. But you'll have a pretty good chance of finding it on Twitter (a pretty good Twitter search engine is Twazzup in case you'd like to try).

On to semantic search. The basic idea is this: instead of trying to figure out how good a site is simply by indexing its keywords, can a search engine create intelligent sets of data and relationships instead? This would lead to more intelligent searches. Say for example I type in "US GPD" in Google. Google will use some semantic digging to tell me it is 13.84 Trillion. But if I typed in a true blue semantic engine like the recently buzzed about WolframAlpha , things look a lot better.

How is this relevant to Bollywood? Well, let's take that age old debate for example - how old are our actors really? Using a semantic search engine, you can get the answer in one line by typing in '[star name] age'. Let's do this in WolframAlpha, shall we? Remember, because the engine is new and it takes time to index the Internet, you won't get information on every star. But you will on the popular ones.

Typing 'Akshay Kumar Age' in Wolfram will tell you his exact age (based on available online information of course). Type in 'Akshay Kumar' and you'll also learn that his real name is - bhais ki poonch! - Rajiv Hari-Om Bhatia.

Now all of this stuff is out on the Internet already. But like any good search engine, a semantic search engine will bring you what you need at your fingertips with spiffy guesswork.

Give a kid a BB gun and what happens? He sprays every wall in sight. Given this nutty controversy about "Bollywood Generations" that erupted recently at Cannes between Aishwarya and Sonam Kapoor, I thought it would be appropriate to compare everyone's ages. Yes, this is intrusive. But it's also interesting!

I restricted my list to famous actors in leading roles - I made an exception for my favorite Himesh Reshammiya and my favorite Star Kid lookalike Karishma Kapoor. I divided my lists by gender.

For kicks I calculated the average age for each gender list. The gap between leading men and women is about 8 years. It surprised me - I was expecting it to be much bigger!

But when you look closely you realize what's been happening. A few focussed actresses have been able to extend their career leases for a bit longer (Madhuri, Tabu, Aish, Kajol) raising the average age of women, while a number of younger actors have been breaking into the upper ranks of Bollywood - thanks to the highly upjau Star Kids system - bringing the average age of the male pool down.

The Men
Average Age: 38

	Amitabh Bachchan October 11, 1942 66
	Govinda December 21, 1958 50
	Sanjay Dutt July 2, 1959 49
	Aamir Khan March 14, 1965 44
	Shahrukh Khan November 2, 1965 43
	Salman Khan December 27, 1965 43
	Ajay Devgun April 2, 1967 42
	Akshay Kumar September 9, 1967 41
	Bobby Deol January 27, 1970 39
	Saif Ali Khan August 16, 1970 38
	John Abraham December 17, 1972 36
	Arjun Rampal November 26, 1972 36
	Himesh Reshammiya July 23, 1973 36
	Hrithik Roshan January 27, 1974 35
	Farhan Akhtar January 9, 1974 35
	Fardeen Khan March 8, 1974 35
	Akshaye Khanna March 28, 1975 34
	Abhishek Bachchan February 5, 1976 33
	Vivek Oberoi September 3, 1976 32
	Emraan Hashmi March 24, 1979 30
	Shahid Kapoor February 25, 1981 28
	Neil Nitin Mukesh January 15, 1982 27
	Imraan Khan January 13, 1983 26
	Ranbir Kapoor September 28, 1982 26

The Women
Average Age: 30

	Madhuri Dixit May 15, 1967 42
	Tabu November 4, 1970 38
	Aishwarya Rai November 1, 1973 35
	Karishma Kapoor June 25, 1974 34
	Preity Zinta January 31, 1975 34
	Kajol August 5, 1974 34
	Shilpa Shetty June 8, 1975 33
	Kareena Kapoor September 21, 1977 31
	Rani Mukherjee March 21, 1978 31
	Vidya Balan January 1, 1978 31
	Lara Dutta April 16, 1978 31
	Bipasha Basu January 7, 1979 30
	Soha Ali Khan October 4, 1978 30
	Konkana Sen Sharma December 3, 1979 29
	Esha Deol November 2, 1982 27
	Mallika Sherwat October 24, 1981 27
	Amrita Rao June 17, 1981 27
	Priyanka Chopra July 18, 1982 26
	Katrina Kaif July 16, 1984 24
	Asin October 26, 1985 24
	Sonam Kapoor June 9, 1985 24
	Deepika Padukone January 5, 1986 23
	Kangana Ranaut March 23, 1987 22
	Genelia D'Souza August 5, 1987 21

Also:

Anon says Mallika's 37 according to her family, Kareena's got to be 27, 28 and how come Genelia is only 21 - she's been working for years
Kangana, 22? Hmmm says meena
A correction from magdalena about Hrithik's age
It strikes Kokanad has funny that the Khans are all the same age
Does Bollywood add age to the women's faces or are they really that young wonders Deepa
Why do men enter movies so late asks Mind Rush
Lin digs into Kareena's real age
Kareena and Rani are the same age? Amrita is confounded
Even Mallika has given up pretending to be in the twenties by Hridya

How Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa got its Jhalak back

2009-06-01T00:01:00.017-05:00

Last year, Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa ended up in an avoidable showdown between a sizzler (Sandhya Mridul) and a TV bahu (Prachi Desai). Much drama happened - not all of it fun. But this season - for a variety of reasons, JDJ was a runaway success. There were several reasons behind it.

WWE RAW, anyone?

I've always wanted to watch the ridiculously fake drama that enfolds in any of those zany Worldwide Wrestling (or any of its anya ripoffs) TV telecasts. But yes, there is such a thing as too tacky and I've never had the patience to sit through one. Until JDJ 3 started airing. Allow me to explain.

You know how Gauhar Khan - that terrific dancer with the kind of jhatkas that would make Helen look like Mother Teresa - was anointed Drama Queen of the show? Fair enough, but even more fun was to watch her reactions whenever she was praised by just about anyone.

Judge Heehee praised her - Gauhar punched the air. Saroj Khan praised her - Gauhar quivered, mock-hung her mouth open and pointed back at Saroj in disbelief. Another time she acted like she was on a trampoline. Vaibhavi Merchant did some wah-wah - Gauhar near hyper-ventilated and then went on a quick stumble to indicate her joy. A dog barked in the back - Gauhar prostrated herself. Ok, I made that last one up but you get the point. All of this was like some of that WWE drama I've seen - powered by over-hyped reactions. It was all so entertaining all I can say is Jai Matadi Let's Do Kushti!

Phaadu, Junglee Dancing

I would like to give full credit to Anand Raaj Anand for inventing both: this term - Phaadu Junglee and a form of dancing unlike anything seen before on the show. When ARA dances, even a cup of chai stays suspended in front of my lips (a majorly unlikely event under normal circumstances). Often ARA would execute hugely hilarious moves - but he would dive into it with such spirit (led by that belly) that it was impossible not to be entertained.

In the finale, he arrived in full form - leaning (literally) into one of his songs with Hard Kaur and thrusting his hands through crevices in his body in ways I didn't think possible. He grabbed the mike and said: "Jab Aaye to chhaaye!" All hail the King of Phaadu soundbites!

Judge Grumpy, Heehee and Jhakaas

I have to say initially Saroj Khan annoyed me a bit. But with time, I realized that this was a gruff exterior tempered in the inhospitable climate of Bollywood. She was actually a fair-minded and gracious matron prone to handing out money when impressed. Towards the end, I eagerly awaited someone to invite her to dance so I could see her break out into some debauched mujra moves.

Initially Judge Heehee also annoyed me a bit. Every time she spoke she seemed to be laughing. Often she sounded like a giddy headed Barbie after eight shots of tequila. But towards the end of the show, something funny happened. Judge Heehee picked up the mike and said "Impossible means 'I m possible'. Following which, she positively annoyed me all the time to the point where I'd like to rename her Judge DVR Skip Button.

Vaibhavi Merchant was jhakaas when the show started and she stayed that way - finishing the finale with a dance that was innovative, stylish, cute and dazzling. When judging she delivered sadak chhaap dialogs with grace and class, thus taking the edge off them and coming across as a bindaas types. Most endearingly, she seemed to be dancing all the time - striking tons of abhinay mudras when handing out scores. Vaibaby, call me - we should hang.

Breakout Stars

JDJ may be all about the stars on the show - but as anyone who watches will tell you, it eventually boils down to the choreographers. And while everyone on JDJ seems to be great, none stood out more this season than Sonia Jaffer and Savio Barnes. Hopefully we'll have an opportunity to talk about Sonia some more in a later post.

But we can talk about Savio now. And here its best to mention a movie called Back at the Barnyard - a movie that got a lukewarm reception but had enough crazy subversive stuff in it that it won me over.

In the movie, after the humans have retired for the night, all the farm animals get together and convert their barn into a blues bar. There is much drinking, singing and dancing. For the climax, the animals all bring out a box and open it. Inside the box is a party animal so strange that it can't be described - its goes by the moniker Wild Mike. The thingy bounds out of the box and bounces off the wall to a hillbilly beat, executing moves strange and jaw dropping.

Savio Barnes was JDJ's Wild Mike.

Nail-biting Suspense

While I care about my own personal entertainment rather than who will win in the end, it was still strangely suspenseful to see who the audience would vote for.

All season long, Karan Singh Grover hid behind Nicole Alvares' expertly coddling choreography (and his buff chest). Would the saas-bahu crowd surge him to the top like they had Mona Singh and Prachi Desai before him?

The producers of JDJ 3 wrung much drama out of Gauhar's bad chemistry with her first choreographer Hanif Hilal. Would the urban crowd vote for an honest, fair-minded person who kept it professional if a little focussed on herself?

The person who walked away with the trophy (hey nice design - can we use it next year instead of that dreadfully ugly IPL trophy?) was Baichung Bhutia. Sure Baichung couldn't shake a leg and went through all his dances with a goldfish expression till the very end, but his win was a vote of confidence for his willingness and his faith in his choreographer - a fact that he graciously kept driving home to everyone multiple times.

More Ads that annoy me - Part 3

2009-05-26T00:07:00.008-05:00

Crabtree Switches

Rajat Kapoor is about to pull out of his driveway. He waves his finger at the electrician about to perform work in his house. "Make sure its Crabtree switches, ok" he smiles.

His wife - a well coiffed late-twentyish chick chides him. "Rajat!" she tsk-tsks "When will you learn? A switch is just a switch!" Here she uses the universally annoying air quotes gesture - so expertly skewered and forced into the lexicon of the passé years ago by David Spade on Saturday Night Live .

What does Rajat do? The gentleman that he is - he swallows hard and does nothing. In fact he keeps driving on.

"Tum bhi na" his wife continues to heckle him.

Later Rajat proposes some tea. His wife agrees. He stops at a chai ka galla, where sweaty, scruffy - and you know - poor people are enjoying tea.

"Here?!" says wifey incredulously.

"Why not?" says Rajat, "Tea is tea". More air quotes.

Wife smiles sheepishly.

Commercial Payload:
Rich men might be smug but they know what they want
Rich men prefer Crabtree switches
Wouldn't you much rather be a 'rich' person than poor riff raff?

BSNL Broadband

A party is at hand. A guy flanked by two chicks can't get his internet connection to - uh, perform. The girls are getting annoyed. Clearly the guy isn't getting laid tonight.

The camera pans to another guy - only this time its a dude. How can you tell? Well he's got better hair and is wearing a jacket. He is also flanked by two women. But they are both really happy? Why? Because he is showing them a high speed Internet video of a girl dancing.

Dude starts rapping. What is he talking about? Social Issues? Gangsta life? Love and loss?

Nope. He's extolling the virtues of BSNL Broadband - a whopping 2 Mb per second. Whoot! Can you say superfast!

Often the dude breaks into an accent, throws cool sounding words around and jabs his pinky and thumb at a laptop. Pretty soon the girls who flank the loser walk over to the dude's end of the room to hang with him.

But wait, there's more. There is a tremendously choreographed dance, the flagship step of which appears to be bringing two hands together in the front like you are patting a mincemeat kebab.

Commercial Payload:
Chicks dig guys with laptops
But they dig dudes with 2 Mbps broadband more
BSNL Broadband will get you laid

Amruta Patil talks about her art and one Karismatic Graphic Novel

2009-05-22T00:01:00.012-05:00

If by providence I was an editor and Amruta Patil had narrated her graphic novel Kari to me, I would shrugged and said: 'It won't work - its too passe'.

But embellished with Amruta's intimate art and lyrical prose, Kari is a graphic novel so absorbing, that upon reading it I would have resigned from my position and spent the rest of my days in the Himalayas repenting.

Fortunately most of that didn't happen and I was able to invite Amruta to stop by the Drift and talk about her work.

AspisDrift.com: Hi Amruta, welcome to the Drift. Loved your work in Kari. There is a ton of stuff I’m dying to ask you about.

People seem to have different interpretations of Kari’s knit eyebrows and her resulting personality. How about we start off with that? My 10 year old Motorsandal says “she looks mysterious!” My 7 year old Youngling says “Dad, that guy looks pissed!” What is Kari like and what DO those knit eyebrows signify?

Amruta: The eyebrows are just so fierce and heartbreaking. "I'm tough", they say. "I have everything in control."

But for all the bravado, she is just twenty years old; beginning to grapple with things she will be grappling with all her life - love, life, death - and the only thing you want to do is give her a squeeze.

AspisDrift.com: What was the process of Kari’s character design like?

Amruta: Kari is the ultimate fly-on-the-wall. Teeming inner life that contrasts with her solitary outer life. She is introverted and genderfluid. A silent engine. I thought she would make a necessary and much-missed counterpoint to the sociable, shrill, hyperfeminine protagonists one meets all the time.

AspisDrift.com: Kari turns 21 in the book. How old were you when you wrote the novel?

Amruta: 28. Which as anyone knows, is eons away from 21.

AspisDrift.com: You’re in Angouleme these days. What are you doing there and for how long? Pick up any French?

Amruta: The city hosts an International Comic Books Festival every January. I'm here on a year-long writer's residency - steering the tail of an elephantine graphic novel project based on the Mahabharat. I am rocking the supermarket French and the 'Ou sont les toilettes?' French. Social interactions are a stretch, but I listen hard - and am happy to find that sounds are slowly percolating into meaning.

AspisDrift.com: Amruta, a little bit about the drawings: What kind of paper did you draw on? How big was it? How did you digitize it all?

Amruta: I draw on all sorts of papers - sometimes on pages of magazines and found things. The originals are a little larger in size than the actual printed image. Each drawing is on a separate page - nightmare for the preproduction people. The drawings were scanned and laid out in a page with QuarkXpress.

AspisDrift.com: In the illustrations, you switch between markers, pens, pencils. I noticed you shade by rubbing graphite and charcoal on paper, but sometimes you’ll cross-hatch for texture. Why the broad jumps in technique?

Amruta: In Kari, I kept the palette grey & black; and used an assortment of styles to match the emotional landscape of the tale. This may not always have come through, but the effort has been to push against the existing visual grammar in visual books. I do not enjoy the conveyor-belt evenness and photoshopped perfection of mainstream comics.

My new work looks very different than Kari, but the effort continues to subvert visual grammar and standard ideas of 'how much text should there be in a graphic novel'.

AspisDrift.com: I have a complaint about the book. You have created some drop dead sexy women in the book but all the men you draw look kind of...unappealing. What’s up with that? Don’t you have any god-like men you can model from?

Amruta: Can I redeem myself by saying that the new work has none but godacious men? You will be begging for ladies in that one.

AspisDrift.com: Was it a tough sell to get a graphic novel published? What is the landscape like for graphic novels in India?

Amruta: I have had a very smooth run. Right place, right time, first mover's advantage. That sort of thing. VK Karthika of HarperCollins (who also, incidentally, commissioned Sarnath Bannerjee while she was working with Penguin) was one of the first people I showed the work to, and she was keen on seeing it through. The segment remains niche, but I think most publishing houses would like to have atleast the token graphic novel in its list now.

AspisDrift.com: Any graphic novels or books you’ve read lately that you would recommend?

Amruta: Have to confess that although I work in the medium of graphic novels currently - I am not its best spokesperson. I do not even see myself as a graphic novelist, but as a writer. The larger inflences have been from history, from literary fiction, from art.

AspisDrift.com: I ask this question of everyone I interview on the Drift so please indulge me: can you fold a fitted bed sheet properly?

Amruta: Absolutely cannot. Precision ends at the writing desk.

AspisDrift.com: Kari’s sexual identity is very much a part of this book – I’d like to ask her a question. Could you please get me an answer from her?

Here is the question: I’ve noticed men in India these days pretend to be gay and Dostana-like by joking about it while keeping proof of their liberated straightness close at hand – for example, they’ll make sure you hear about their wife (like as if that’s any kind of proof). What do you think of this gay-chic phenom in India?

Amruta: Aspi I am so uncool, I hear of most chic things five years too late. I think the most appealing state for Kari is an Orlandoesque genderfluidity. Maybe that is what people secretly aspire for, but to live it out is frightening. And hence the tittering, the awkward jokes, the homophobia. Gender and sexuality have their place - but in Kari's book, and mine - it is not at the centre of the universe.

Amruta blogs at Umbilical
She is working on Parva/The Epic. Preview it here .

Some graphic novels worth reading whether you are into comics or not (recommendations are mine, please no blaming Amruta for these)

Aya of Yop City - Marguerite Abouet, Clement Oubrerie
If Ekta Kapoor could draw and spent her youth in a vibrant, buzzing Ivory Coast, she'd make this graphic novel.

Exit Wounds - Rutu Modan
If Ekta Kapoor could draw and spent a tortured youth in Israel, she'd make this graphic novel

Life Sucks - Jessica Abel, Gabriel Soria, Warren Pleece
If Ekta Kapoor could draw, got bit by a vampire and wasted her youth in Smalltown, USA, she'd make this graphic novel

The Plain Janes - Cecil Castellucci, Jim Rugg
If Ekta Kapoor was an arty, self-propelled chick who didn't necessarily obsess about boys all the time, she'd make this graphic novel

Off Road - Sean Murphy
If Ekta Kapoor could draw, had never watched TV and was a groin-scratching dude who'd gotten kicked around in life, she'd make this graphic novel

Pride of Baghdad - Brian K. Vaughan, Niko Henrichon
If Ekta Kapoor was a lion inadvertently freed by American bombs from a zoo in Baghdad along with his family, she'd make this graphic novel

Ek Aur Strike on Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa 3

2009-05-20T13:01:00.000-05:00

This week on JDJ 3, the show that never fails to deliver, there was a shocking elimination. A week ago, the producers played up a jhagda between Hard Kaur and the show's resident firestarter Gauhar Khan. On the surface, it looked fairly minor, but much was made of it.

The week's festivities started off with a shaababi-kebabi mujra face off between the fighting hastis. Now you could argue that mujra is a fine art form, but having grown up watching Pran and Ranjeet sniff at a garland of flowers wrapped around their wrist while watching the same, I've come to associate them with much sleaziness.

Without being particularly impolite to the ladies, let me just say that both dancers delivered on this front.

Fast forward to the elimination episode and Saroj Khan was called on to declare the second finalist. Someone gave her a coin upon which she inexplicably unleashed some mujra moves of her own. Thank God for random loopiness because this was much fun to watch.

Saroj continued to prance around attempting to taunt the remaining super-tense contestants with the coin - which was nigh invisible in her hand. "You like this?", "Isn't it cute", "Do you believe in HIM" she said to glum face after glum face, reminding me a bit of King Julian from Madagascar.

In any case, in the resulting dance off between Gauhar and Hard Kaur (hey, who scripts this show so perfectly?!), Hard Kaur got eliminated. Everyone pulled a face and shook their heads. Then Hard Kaur was invited to do her final dance, which seemed to remind everyone of how much they were going to miss her.

Bus, that was it! Saroj Khan picked up the mike and framed by the other two judges, issued a karate chop in the air. "We strike!" she declared, adding for some reason that this was a historic occasion on TV.

Vaibhavi Merchant chastisized the audiences for not voting properly.

This is where all logic usually breaks down for me. This show is about dance? I think not - if it was, why would you invite non-dancers like Karan Singh Grover in the first place to participate?

This show is about spectacle, like any other TV show is (anyone watch the news lately?) So, complaints against the audience not voting "properly" is not only futile, but plain incorrect.

The audience always votes correctly. They vote for entertainment. JDJ 3 is nothing but. And I'm thankful for that. It's not that I don't appreciate a good dance - I loved all of Hard Kaur and Savio's performances - but if the show was only all about dance, it wouldn't be on my DVR.

Oye its PJ! Why Oye Its Friday is important (although not just yet)

2009-05-19T08:14:00.005-05:00

Now that Oye it's Friday! has mothballed its first season in the US (and a while ago in India), it's time to sit back in my armchair and point out what worked and what didn't. I recognize that its patently unfair to snootily judge the hard work of so many. Right, so moving on.

Farhan's show - OIF - is essentially a scripted talk show in the fine tradition of American Johnny Carson-esque talk shows. Everyone who keeps calling it a "unique show" or perhaps more amusingly - a "reality show", please no. Just about everything (format, presentation, heck even the way Farhan positions himself) on OIF is derived from David Letterman or Conan O'Brien - only focussed on Bollywood. Its not a bad thing at all, I mean look at how successful the IPL turned out to be. I'm just saying.

Produced by Endemol, India - who have been putting their reality properties all over the Indian TV-scape, OIF airs on NDTV and is easily the most glamorous show on the upstart channel's schedule. The importance of OIF to NDTV can't be overstated - nighttime talk shows are an underdeveloped market in India. But the tapping of the urban market by Bollywood makes it tempting to try and reach the same viewers on broadcast television. OIF is a way for NDTV to get there, establish an early grip in this category and make the channel a destination for commercial friendly, disposable income rich audiences.

The Framework

So back to the show - OIF runs in the US about a month behind its Indian counterpart (here I'd like to suggest that the person behind this type of programming - which indicates basic disrespect for US audiences - should be rewarded with a vacation, a very long one). It is operated within a standard framework - it's taped in front of a live audience and the host is accompanied by a live band. There is the requisite stage with couches where celebrity guests are perched. The backdrop is the ghisa pita, urban skyline of many other talk shows (it is supposed to indicate a vibrant, happening city - a basic suggestion to audiences that they can partake in the urban party by just sitting on their couch and tuning in).

Farhan comes in - usually via some opening gag - does a mild stand up routine and announces his line up. There is a celebrity guest - an A-lister thanks to Farhan's own star wattage. There are sketches (on OIF they are called "gags"). There are performances - some by musicians and some by what look like European ex-circus acts.

OIF also features an item number - an idea that at first glance looks creatively vapid but later comes across as deliberate irony in Farhan's wink-wink presence. This is usually done by a starlet with accompanying dancers. The performers are - as they should be - a who's who of C-listers. I would like to see everyone who appeared in this song to show up as a performer on OIF. What OIF does really well is that as soon as the dance is over, the starlet is dismissed summarily - no maska polish, kem chho type of banter to stoke anyone's ego. Just appearing on OIF, the show seems to say, is enough of a time slice for the likes of you. Terrific!

The Host

Farhan positions himself as a Conan O'Brien - a genial goofball who is good natured, but not above pulling someone's leg in the name of fun. He tries everything, often verbally throwing stuff at his guests that may or may not work and just watching what will stick. More on Farhan's interaction with his guests later. But decked out in geeky T-shirt on shirt outfits, Farhan seems to create an fairly inviting space for his viewers. He shrugs off bad jokes and keeps at it with an enthusiasm that makes you root for him.

The Guests

There are two types of guests on OIF that I care about. The celebs who are the centerpiece, and the starlets who are the item types. Most celebs, savvy to the nature of the show, submit to participating in sketches that poke fun at themselves. The ones with a funny bone will match Farhan's ribbing pound for pound.

Which leads me to one of the biggest issues with this show - it lives and dies with the personality of the center-stage celeb.

Invite Shahrukh Khan or a Priyanka Chopra, and they'll keep the show motoring along with wisecracks and generally engaging chat. Often a Mughda Godse will surprise you with her sparkling personality. But invite the reserved Ranbir Kapoor or the surprisingly stoic Katrina Kaif and the show just stops dead in its tracks. Somehow Farhan has to reach beyond his (lack of) history with his guests and deliver consistently engaging chats. The format of the show doesn't help in this regard - the banter is supposed to be light hearted. All celeb guests aren't comfortable with light hearted gup shup. Good luck, buddy!

It's in all the tangential references that OIF really shines. I loved the fact that Monica Bedi shimmied to a Rakhi Sawant song when SRK's arrival was announced with the music of Don playing in the back. In numerous episodes Farhan will ask his guest to do something they did in a movie that became really popular (Ranbir's towel dance in Saawariya, Katrina's Zara Zara Touch Me sashay from Race) - which becomes sharply funny against the backdrop of the terrific Mac Mohan cameo in Luck By Chance.

Often Farhan will recall those star kids birthday parties with his guests in which he partook. And if you are particularly bored, you can watch him closely to see if you can figure out where he was in the star kids hierarchy back in the day.

The Rest

OIF has a house band - we don't get to see them much. And here I think OIF has locked up potential that may be worth exploring. After all, music is the centerpiece of Bollywood and its one endearing knight in shining armor (which is another way to say: we can all rely on the music to rock even when the rest of everything sucks).

Why wouldn't you invite a kick ass new voice to front up the band and then make sure they were seen? Can we have a Shilpa Rao, Manasi Scott or a Himani Kapoor? How about Blaaze or Ash King? (e.g. Raghu Dixit project on the show - good idea!)

There are two additional things in OIF worth mentioning - I love the set, which reminds me of the insides of that bad ass Alien from the Sigourney Weaver movie. It allows some visual momentum to be created when guests are coming in or being escorted out. Plus it looks cool!

Second, whoever does the outfits for the dancers is doing a fabulous job. Why I've felt like wearing some of them myself during Family Disco Night. But while we are talking about outfits, whoever is responsible for dressing up the guests - the ones who don't come in their own super-expensive outfits - can you please take a little more care? Either leave the guests in their own threads or find a jacket that fits them, yes?

OIF's Season 1 Episodes

You may not know Hitesh Sonik, but here is why you really should!

2009-05-16T22:00:00.020-05:00

There are several reasons Hitesh Sonik should be more famous beyond inner circles in the filmi music duniya than he is. As a music producer, he is a large part of Vishal Bhardwaj's signature sound. In 2006 with Vishal as composer, skilfully combining art with commerce, he forged possibly the finest Bollywood CD of the millennium - Omkara.

This year, in a magical collaboration with composer Piyush Mishra and Rekha Bhardwaj, Hitesh produced Ranaji - a modern day mujra about a person with delusions of grandeur who is so vicious that he evokes several carefully calibrated references to 9/11.

And because Hitesh has also produced one of the most anticipated CDs of the year - Vishal Bhardwaj's Kaminey, I felt it was about time more people in my world knew about him. Hitesh was kind enough to stop by the Drift and answer some questions.

AspisDrift.com: Hi Hitesh, welcome to the Drift. People who program music aren’t as famous as their music composer brethren, so I just wanted to say this: you are among my heroes!

Hitesh: This is the most beautiful thing ever said to me about my job....big thanks! No, BIG THANKS!

AspisDrift.com: First question: I’m dying to hear more about the song Ranaji. It’s supposed to be a hoot, but it’s also very wistful and touching. And the references to 9/11 make it tricky to handle as a composition. How did the song come together?

Hitesh: I loved the song the first time I heard it. Which was way back in 2003, 2004. Much before Beedi and Namak happened and declared their kabzaa on the genre.

The script was in place and demanded two mujras. I'm not sure you've seen the film but its interesting and twisted in the Anurag Kashyap-ist idiom. So naturally, thereafter, something like this had to happen!

It was entirely Piyush Mishra's acute vision that led to it. We called it the political mujra. Since the lyrics and the tune both were written by him, there wasn't much conflict creatively. I loved it and just wanted to make sure the content and intent of the song wouldn't get lost in the arrangements...yet sound as contemporary as possible...keeping the film's Rajasthani backdrop in mind.

Getting the right voice was critical...and with Rekha Bhardwaj that was thankfully pretty much taken care of.

AspisDrift.com: Let’s talk about music production in general – what kind of guidelines do you normally get in Bollywood when working with a composer?

Hitesh: Well...is it hard to guess? Everybody wants a hit...and no matter what tempo or mood the song denotes, they just want to cater to everybody. There's no respect for a select audience...but then that's how most businesses function, don't they?

No complaints really...but a little space would allow us all to stretch our arms real wide open! Won't that feel good?

AspisDrift.com: Ok Hitesh, we all know very little about you. So I’d like to change that. But instead of asking you all kinds of boring stuff like your birth date, I’m going to ask you far more intrusive stuff.

At a party, you are most likely to drink...

Hitesh: CHAI....

AspisDrift.com: When you’re home, your CD changer is most likely playing...

Hitesh: Nothing mostly. Something classical maybe...Hindustani or Western...but nothing percussive! Strictly. Everything else I enjoy listening to in my car...

AspisDrift.com: The wildest thing you’ve ever done in a studio is...

Hitesh: Spilled a cup of tea on the mixing console... :( It was hot and mine! Had to go without tea the whole day...

AspisDrift.com: The musical instruments you can play is/are...

Hitesh: Guitar. A bit of keyboards...and can produce sounds out of a flute, tabla and tin cans ;)

AspisDrift.com: Your biggest regret in life, the one that got away is...

Hitesh: Let it!

AspisDrift.com: If (the upcoming) Kaminey was nominated for a Grammy and you were at the Awards ceremony, the first thing you’d do is to look for...

Hitesh: I can only answer this after I'm back from there :) Want to give you honest answers only you see.

AspisDrift.com: If someone walks up to you and asks, dude what does Namak Ishq Ka (from Omkara) really mean? You’d say...

Hitesh: You really asking??

AspisDrift.com: Hitesh, given the type of hit but arty music you’ve produced so far in your career, I have to ask you this question. If a director came up to you and said: Hitesh, I want you to produce the music for my next film Disco Dancer 2010 - would you say
(a) Thanks, but that’s not me!
(b) Heck yes! What took you guys so long to offer me one of these?
(c) Depends, what’s the pay like?

Hitesh: (b)! With absolute pleasure!

AspisDrift.com: Last question, I ask this of everyone on the Drift. Can you fold a fitted bed sheet?

Hitesh: Is this a trick question Aspi? I don't understand it...

Hitesh's Definitive Filmography
Four Brothers and a Funeral (2005) – Composer
Maachis (1996) – Music Assistant
Godmother (1999) – Music Assistant
Hu Tu Tu (1999) – Music Assistant
Maqbool (2003) – Music Producer
The Blue Umbrella (2005) – Music Producer
Omkara (2006) – Music Producer
Blood Brothers (2007) – Background Score
No Smoking (2007) - Music Producer and Background Score
Gulaal (2009) – Music Producer
Firaaq (2009) – Music Producer
Kaminey (2009) – Music Producer

Also: More about music production and the process in this interview with Clinton Cerejo

Amruta Patil's Kari

2009-05-13T00:01:00.012-05:00

In the opening panel of Amruta Patil's engrossing and touching graphic novel Kari, the author depicts two women - Ruth and Kari - just before they commit suicide. The panel is an homage to Frida Kahlo's searing Las Dos Fridas, painted after Frida was abandoned by her long time partner Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. It depicts two Frida's - two versions - one rejected by Diego and the other embraced by him. Frida's heart is bleeding her to death.

It's an opening that absolutely pulled me in. Ruth and Kari's attempt to end their life is a metaphor for a gut churning breakup. But if you're familiar with the painting on which the opening panel is based, you can read in a lot more about what Amruta might be telling you about her protagonists. Kari and Ruth may be the same person - or portions of each reside in the other. (Kari is listed as a work of fiction, but it reads like a reconstituted memoir)

Ruth and Kari both jump from their respective buildings - you assume their decision to end their relationship happens over the phone. Ruth lands in a safety net below her building, hops on a flight to a foreign land and starts a family (she is depicted as holding a child in a panel). Kari lands in a sewer where she must pick up the pieces of her life again and carry on.

The novel then settles into the story of a young woman finding her equilibrium in Mumbai (the sewer). Often in order to become memorable, a slice-of-life story has to depict a significant event as backdrop to the central story (the Holocaust in Maus, the Iranian revolution in Persepolis). Kari doesn't have anything of this nature, except for a well defined sense of the grimy breakdown of Mumbai. But it manages to be tender and engaging - and there are several reasons for that.

First is the way Amruta structures her sequential art. A variety of drawing techniques embellish her words. She uses pencils, charcoal, pens, markers, crayons and water colors. A couple of times she uses photographic images and incorporates them in her drawing in scrapbook style. She uses action transitions between her panels sparingly, almost rarely. Often Kari feels like a diary embellished with pictures. Her characters are designed loosely, but Kari herself is a rich, fully realized person. She's strong, she's straight forward, she's devil may care,she's not above getting hurt, but she doesn't wallow in misery. Interestingly, Kari's eyebrows are constantly knit to give her a no-nonsense personality. This leaves Amruta with Kari's mouth to convey primary emotion - something she does quite successfully in the novel.

Sometimes Amruta will render a panel like a design. It's a fine thing to watch but if there is one critique I have about Kari it is in the way the drawings change their character. I couldn't detect any sense of rhythm when the author switched between color to black and white, or pen drawings to marker and graphite. A change in visual style is just as strong a story telling tool as words are in a graphic novel. In Kari you get the feeling that Amruta Patil is still discovering her visual technique.

Back to the good stuff. Second is the way Amruta writes. She has a fine sense of lyricism in her prose. "What is it about snow globes" she asks at one point, "that makes them fascinating and terrifying at once?" In written work, this can tend to come across a bit heavy handed. But thanks to the magic of a visual medium such as graphic novels, this feels deft and touching.

There are also bits and pieces that connected me to the story. In several panels - two of which seem to be rendered with pencils and the finger smudges, Kari describes the smells of the city while traveling in a train. Earlier, Kari describes her cramped living quarters by sketching out a floor plan. There are amusing details about Kari's work with an advertising agency. Somewhere, Kari is shown exploring the boundaries of her sexuality. What Kari lacks in terms of immersive drawing, it makes up for in terms of vivid story telling.

Kari ends with a declaration of independence and an acknowledgment of the emotional ties that bind. (This is done in a flurry of panels that feel a bit unfinished.) There is a reference to a sequel that, given how much I enjoyed Kari, is one I'll be happy to wait for.

Kari is published by Harper Collins India
Amruta Patil blogs at Umbilical.

Indian Ads, Hidden Codes - Part 2: Complan versus Horlicks

2009-05-12T00:01:00.023-05:00

"Is it true that Complan makes kids grow faster (than Horlicks)?" A mother with a somewhat lopsided jaw wonders. It bugs her so much she decides to check it out for herself.

But since she isn't the only one with phaltu time on her hands, she goes out and collects a bunch of other "concerned" (aka "good") mothers like herself. All of them march (really, I mean it) towards The Center for Health and Nutrition (or something like that). In a scene reminiscent of the zombie classic Dawn of the Dead, the mothers storm under the sign and through the gates of the Center.

An official looking doctor greets them. How could I tell? Well for one he's wearing a white lab coat - a sure sign of celluloid Ph.D. The man is a bit young and unrealistically well groomed to be a doctor - even by Indian TV standards. The man raises both hands to pacify the mob of mothers.

"We've done SCIENTIFIC tests" he assures the mothers. "We gave one group of kids Complan and another group of kids that other drink. And we found that the kids who drank Complan grew TWICE as much as the other kids"

While the doctor is talking, we are shown scenes of doctors measuring the height of kids. And because this is a scientific test, the kids' heights are measured while they are still wearing their shoes. Guess which set of kids came in wearing particularly thick soles, heh heh.

Later the concerned mother mugs at the camera and joyously announces: "Get ready for your kids to grow twice as fast!" She rests her chin theatrically and lovingly on her son's shoulders - reminding me of several nutty scenes from this legendary movie.

This Ad is really talking to:

Bad Moms who aren't paying enough attention to their kids
Working Moms who have chosen their career over their kids growing twice as fast
Really competitive Moms ("Your Babloo plays guitar? Mine can play the national anthem on a trombone!")
Scientifically inclined people
Fans of the newly resurgent Zombie zeitgeist

(Sorry no video of ad, this included picture is from another, older ad of same campaign)

Revealed! The secret target demographic of Indian commercials - Part 1

2009-05-08T00:03:00.012-05:00

Recently I found myself with a lot of free time during a visit to the desh. I decided to use it wisely - I watched hour upon hour of IPL , gleefully settling down to watch eight hour blocks of TV cricket.

Soon however, I found that in between all that cool cricket action I would be forced to watch the most inane and annoying commercials. After multiple viewings, I felt I might go insane. I became irritable and irrational. I started heckling the batsmen, the bowlers and the commentators for all the agony they were peripherally inflicting on me.

Once when Rahul Dravid was batting, I nodded off. I heard a clap and saw a billowing cloud of smoke. Before me stood Bunker Swahadevan.

"Bunker!" I said "Is that you?"

"Yes" sang Bunker and then launched into a superb alaap - his hand flicking imaginary locks of hair off his forehead.

After he was finished, he admonished me.

"Aspi!" he scolded, "you know I and my band Bunker Fashion Coy work on most of these commercials. I'm disappointed you don't like our work. Why don't you try and give these ads a second chance?"

"Go wuuaaachhhh theeemmmm" Bunker's voice faded into the distance.

My eyes flew open with a start! Had it all been a dream? Well, I was lying down on the couch and dribbling. But then I noticed the word "Maa" scrawled on the layer of dust on my window pane. I knew this had been no ordinary day dream.

I took Bunker's advice to heart. I paid renewed attention to the commercials. Soon I started to enjoy them. In a few days, I was so enraptured that I even started taking notes.

Inexoribly it dawned on me that these ads communicated more than met the eye (or ears). There seemed to be a secret code to them, a specific audience they were talking to - a hidden target demographic. I decided to decipher their coding.

In continuing posts, I'll talk about my research on specific ads - annoying beyond belief, but expertly communicating to an audience with disposable income and luring them with coded talk. This exercise had a rather pleasant side effect - I became smarter and more entertained.

Thanks, Bunker!

Coming up:
Complan vs Horlicks
Crabtree Switches: A switch is a switch
Fanta: Bunking is allowed
BSNL 2Mbps Broadband
More?

John Niven's 'Kill Your Friends'

2009-04-22T00:06:00.000-05:00

In his terrific barbed-wire of a book Kill Your Friends - about the serpentine pathways that must be negotiated by execs in the music industry - John Niven introduces us to his main character, an A&R exec called Steven Stelfox with these words.

"So here's what I do. I listen to music - singers, bands, songwriters - and decide which ones stand a good chance of commercial success. I then arrange for them to be recorded in a sympathetic manner and we, the record company, sell them to you, the general public. Sound easy? Get f***** - you wouldn't last ten minutes."

It is easily the most genial and cordial thing Steven says in the entire book.

In fact, Steven is an acidic mess of a man. Often sloshed and coked up, He acknowledges his lack of talent, but is so disparaging of the music business that he believes he is working well below his station of calling - which really should be Head of A&R at his (fictitous) label.

In one early scene, Steven is in a status update meeting with other execs at the label. A&R (Artists and Repertoire) primarily handles artist discovery and development. Rapidly Steven introduces us to his colleagues - he paints each one as a loser. He's particularly scathing on women, a behaviorial trait that often gives the book hilarious and shocking hues.

Later Niven writes a hilarious scene in which Steven is at Cannes and listening to a single produced by a German producer. It has wildly NC-17 lyrics, but the tune is ridiculously catchy. As Steven thinks his way through the pros and cons of buying the single - and subsequent marketing strategy - we get an insight into the making of a very (manufactured) hit.

Delving into Steven's mind is a technique Niven uses to great effect throughout the book. He's particularly adept at describing the blur that is Steven's life. And these descriptions are very immersive - they transport you right out of the book and into Steven's frenzied world.

Around the end of the first third, the book starts to drag just a little - primarily because Steven's cultivated dementedness begins to wear thin. But with near perfect timing, Niven has Steven indulge in an act that takes you by surprise and instantly gives the book a loose but propulsive plot.

Musical celebrities are interwoven into the fiction in this book. Each chapter describes the events of a month. Its prefaced with a summary of significant events that occured in music history - allowing the fiction to take root in the real world, and also giving us period markers.

May starts like this (links inserted by me).

"Spice Girls do massive Pepsi deal. Lots of interest in Ultrasound now. The Jamiroquai LP goes triple platinum. Audioweb's single 'Faker' charts at 70. Deconstruction signs this girl singer called Sylvia Powell...."

There are lot of details woven into Niven's story. We get great insights into how talent is scouted, coaxed, cajoled and "discovered". In a deeply amusing and interesting story arc, Steven develops a girl band with virtually no talent in the hope that they can ride post-Spice Girls Girl Power to a multiplatinum hit. One fascinating section has Steven talking about the amount of cash it takes to maintain his lifestyle.

There was one overriding concern I had while reading this book - that the central protagonists' personality would end up overpowering the story itself. Magically it doesn't happen - and 'Kill Your Friends' ends up being one hugely entertaining read of lasting impact.

Kill Your Friends: A Novel is available in the US from Harper Perrenial, a paperback imprint of Harper Collins that focusses on new and young writers.

Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa 3's Personalities of the Week: Hipinder and ARA

2009-04-20T00:03:00.000-05:00

Last week on Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa 3, Anand Raaj Anand humped a ladder. But before we get to that, let's talk about my other favorite - Hipinder Hopernath.

Picture Hipinder Hopernath right in front of your eyes. Then imagine putting a cross-hair on him so that he is divided up into four quadrants. Each limb is in one quadrant. If you are feeling particularly generous you can put his head into a fifth quadrant - although four should be good enough to illustrate the point.

Now each of Hipinder's four quadrants have a mini-brain of its own. I'm not sure where they are located or how the physiology works - but they are there I tell you. How do I know? Because whenever Hipinder dances, each mini-brain acts independently, thus achieving the considerable feat of moving each of the four limbs completely indepedently of each other.

To say Hipinder is uncoordinated would be too simplistic. It's like saying soccer is a game of kicking the ball. Actually soccer is a game of opening and closing spaces - and how its players play in those spaces. Similarly watching Hipinder dance is like watching an epic battle drama. Each of Hipinder's four fiefdoms battle for supremacy on the dance floor by doing what they think is best. Occassionally they form loose alliances - one foot might move in taal with say a hand. But these alliances are short lived. Then its back to Warzone Hipinder all over again.

In his wildcard performance, Hipinder's choreographer Lilian Mendes tried her best to hide him by putting him in some black mukhmali outfit and then dancing in front of him as much as possible dressed in a tasselled green number.

Anyway, back to Anand Raj Anand - who dances like the energizer bunny. The best thing about ARA is that he'll be all arms and legs but strangely enough his hips remains super tight - incapable of any coordinating movement. So when ARA dances, it appears he's executing super cool moves born of an alien race - its the physical equivalent of speaking in tongues. He's like a katputli on speed.

Last week ARA decided to pay homage to Rajnikanth. May the Gods strike me down for saying this, but Rajni - beloved though he may be around here - is an Amitabh Bachchan category dancer. So ARA would be the perfect person to execute this tribute. And what was on paper came to fruition as ARA danced like a rabid animal (in all fairness he had warned everyone that he had arrived in a "phaadu, junglee mood" - someone copyright that dialog, quick!)

After making out with his prop - a white ladder (2:32 into this vid), ARA donned Rajni style shades and yanked open the top of the ladder - which was supposed to shower flower petals all over his head. ARA got a bit carried away and lost his mark, thus causing the petals to drop in one unceremonious clump on his right shoulder.

Saroj Khan was so impressed with all this cavorting around that she called ARA "Govinda ka baap" - further fuelling the long standing rumor that Rajni might have sired most Bollywood actors from the 80s.

Sadly, neither Hipinder nor ARA are with us any longer on the show. The world of dancing weeps!

The Bollywood Strike: How a new US model could help test the waters

2009-04-17T00:05:00.002-05:00

The Bollywood multiplex strike has far reaching implications on the economy of India's biggest industry.

It's not the first time this has happened either. Last year India's premier production house Yash Raj Films had a similar standoff - albeit smaller - that saw them take the misguided stance of releasing their much anticipated movie Tashan in standalone cinemas (i.e. cinema halls with single screens). The result: a high profile flame out that put the brakes on the careers of Saif and Kareena and began Akshay Kumar's alarming slide at the box office.

In its current form the strike is hurting a slew of good releases - hugely screwing the creative team behind each of these movies - potentially throttling or derailing careers (is that Akshay sobbing in the back that I hear?)

Just in case you need a recap and don't have time to read this great Strike tutorial, here is what has transpired.

Producers: We should be getting 50% of ticket receipts!
Multiplex owners: Hell no and why now anyway?
Producers: Because we are hurting. It costs more money to make flicks these days.
Multiplex owners: But you guys still deliver enough flops that we need to make money off the big hits to cover our expenses!
Producers: So how would 50% hurt?
Multiplex owners: Ok, how about we share more if the movie is a hit and less if it flops
Producers: Given our track record this is a bad idea. But aren't you making money off sales of those diamond encrusted samosas?
Multiplex owners: Who told you they were diamond encrusted?
Producers: We took a guess based on their price!
Multiplex owners: You're wrong and we don't make enough money off them because they are quadruple fried and the price of oil has gone up.
Producers: What about the money you make off parking?
Multiplex owners: The mall owners take that - haven't you done your homework?

Stalemate.

But there is a way to test the waters with a different distribution model. You can try it right here in the US. It's almost guaranteed to work. And Bollywood producers have virtually nothing to lose.

Recently I was invited by a composer pair to check out a movie for which they had composed the background score. The movie - a scary flick starring a veteran who chaffs at being still called a "newcomer" - wasn't playing in theaters. I realized I had three options: (1) order some pissy Shemaroo type copy (if I can find it) and wait for it to arrive (yawn!) (2) go buy a (pirated) copy for $2 at the local store or (3) ask my friend to download a (pirated) copy for me. Then pray the copy won't suck outright in all cases.

Needless to say, any which way I looked, the best options ended up with me and a pirated copy spending an evening together.

Hold that thought while we discuss another bit of economics at play. To understand this part, it helps to have a decent grip on The Long Tail phenomenon in ETail. (Read at least the introduction and first chapter of this groundbreaking book if you are interested).

The basic idea is this: although conventional wisdom says you need to sell a lot of a little to make money (the 80/20 principle), there is just as much money in selling a lot of a lot (i.e. the long tail). For the first time in retail history, the latter scenario is viable thanks to the Internet.

What is the biggest problem with Bollywood multiplex releases in the US?

Its only viable in cities with a high density of desi people (the primary Bollywood goers). In cities with a smattering of desis, keeping a Bollywood movie on a screen - even for a limited time - is not financially viable. By going the traditional (multiplex) route, producers lose out on all these small niche desi audiences all over the world. I am willing to bet these micro-markets add up to a lot of money. The only problem is - how do you deliver your movie effectively to these people without having to rent a theater?

The answer, of course, is staring every Bollywood producer in the face: its called Online Video (or if you under 15 - its called YouTube). Online Video took off a few years ago. Last year it became a commodity play. This year, there will be a shakeout. Next year - it will become a platform that every retailer will be able to embed in their online offering. Many are already doing it.

Legal, online (streaming or downloadable), on-demand Bollywood movies is a great idea. Its one I would pay up to $8 a pop for - more for a movie with Bips in it. It can be delivered anywhere to the desi diaspora. You have much better control over the quality of your product. And it'll give the pirated DVD market a serious run for its money.

My phaltu Drift advice to the Bollywood producers is this: don't wait for Hollywood to bring everything to you. You can leapfrog Hollywood here - and the economics are in your favor. There are several models available.

Strike a deal with Netflix, digitize all your flicks and take a cut for every stream or download. Strike the same deal with Blockbuster Online.

Strike a similar deal with Comcast On Demand and have copies delivered to DVRs.

Stick the damn thing on the terrific Hulu.com, break up the movie in chunks and make money off ads in and around the movie. (Google will be more than happy to strike a deal for their InVideo product)

The only fall out (other than the fact that someone will have to do some smart, creative business development) is that this will piss off US multiplex owners. Bully for you, I say.

Multiplexes - if they don't reinvent themselves - are going down in any case. Work out a deal with them where you give them two weeks (the average run time of a Hindi movie in theaters in the US) before you make online streaming available.

There might be one more excuse - you can't reach your largest audience (India) effectively with any of these models because enough people aren't online with cheap, fast connections yet. Fair enough. But you can still make enough money off international audiences with this model. The cost of entry is falling literally on a quarterly basis. Early momentum in this space will set the studios up nicely when the burgeoning number of Indians going online reaches critical mass.

And guess what it'll take to start delivering the same content and quality to new Indian audiences?

That's right - almost (next to) nothing!

Tell me about your mother on Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa 3

2009-04-16T00:02:00.007-05:00

Something funny is happening on JDJ. First, it's turning a bit Freudian. And second, Judge Heehee has appointed herself the moral police of the show.

Remember how Gauhar and Hanif had verbal sparring matches on every show - and it eventually resulted in the ejection of Hanif at the hands of the judges ? That happened a couple of weeks ago.

Now paired with her new choreographer - Himanshu - Gauhar executed the following dance.

Gauhar is on the phone discussing wedding anniversary plans with Himanshu. (Stay with me here - its a dance so the phone is a fake one). Suddenly she hears a loud crash on the line. WTF? she wonders. Just then the doorbell rings. Himanshu has arrived.

"Ah you made it!" she exclaims. "How could I not for an occasion like this" says fake husband trying to cock his head cutely. Dancing ensues. Both strike numerous poses and execute a bunch of ballroom moves cocked like dancers in a Paso Doble. Then Himanshu melts away in the background. Phone rings. Gauhar picks up. "Your husband is dead!" the voice at the other ends says. Gauhar executes scenery chomping acting and crumbles to the floor.

And thus, Gauhar killed her choreographer on the show. Tremendously absorbing stuff.

"Who said models can't act" remarked Saroj Khan.

On to the whole moral police bit. Earlier this season, some dancer - I forget who - did a hugely romachuk dance on JDJ. At the end, Judge Heehee, aka Juhi Chawla, picked up the microphone and said "I loved it but you spread your legs a little too much in one move". Her implication was that the vulgarity of that move took away from the romance of the dance.

This was hilarious - the equivalent of Asha Bhonsle roasting some poor girl for singing "I wanna make love" on SRGMP - an annual event.

Ever since then I've been watching dances with bated breath, whooping with delight whenever some woman scissors her legs a little too widely. Surely, I tell myself, Judge Heehee will pounce on the poor girl! But no! Judge Heehee has not been very obliging on this front.

However, on last week's show the moral police swung into action from an unexpected quarter - and it was just as much fun to watch. Nicole Alvares, who is paired up with Karan Singh Grover aka The Hulk, danced with a blindfold (don't ask).

No sooner had the dance finished when Judge Heehee went: "The dance was great!" (waved hand around like patting down a bed sheet) "But you were peeking from under the blindfold weren't you? Come on, put your hand on your heart and admit it!"

Poor Nicole was flabbergasted. "No, No!" she insisted. Karan came to her rescue by suggesting they do the dance again to lay all doubts to rest. On hearing this Judge Heehee swallowed hard. But she kept on at it. Saroj Khan joined in. A delicious awkwardness settled in that was dispelled when Vaibhavi Merchant told everyone to take the choreographers word and get on with it.

"We used to do it when we were kids so I can tell!" continued Judge Heehee finally revealing where all this was coming from - personal childhood trauma!

What did I tell you? This show has psychological layers waiting to be peeled back like there's no tomorrow.

Arey O Sambhar

2009-04-14T00:04:00.016-05:00

Recently the impressive library of a Chicagoland suburb decided enough Body Odor was enough. It issued a prohibition of "offensive bodily odors" on its patrons, subject to eviction from the library.

"Director Stephanie Sarnoff said the aroma would have to be so overpowering that it interfered with others' use of the facility. And while the policy stemmed from complaints about an apparently homeless person, Sarnoff said it would apply just as much to an overuse of perfume as an underuse of soap."

There is some minor controversy about how this targets homeless people and perpetuates all kinds of stereotypes. Mostly inane and boring stuff.

But speaking of stereotypes - I wonder how many people have shared this experience with me.

You go into a grocery store to shop. Suddenly the delicate aroma of Chicken Vindaloo fills the air. Wow, you tell yourself, since when did Dominick's start selling fresh Indian food? So you follow your nose (and I have a pretty sharp one) hoping it will lead you to the newly laid out Indian Groceries aisle. No more going to three different stores just to get groceries done! you smile to yourself. Only you reach the end of the trail and you find yourself staring at the rear end of a guy buying a 30 lbs bag of onions. The guy IS your Chicken Vindaloo.

Come on now, it has to be said: a number of desi people (and they probably have no clue who they are) smell like mixed vegetable curry. You run into them everywhere: the office, the store, even the library. Pretty soon you can tell from across an aisle the exact dinner menu of the person you'll surely run into when you turn the corner.

This phenomenon is exacerbated in places like Chicago because of its harsh winters. Cold weather means shuttered doors and windows. Poor ventilation. The aroma of delicious Indian food swirling around the house for weeks. Until it gets into your hair, your clothes, your jackets, your couches. Heck it probably gets into your soap as well because after a while I've noticed people just smell of the same food no matter what the time of the day is.

Once during my graduate studies, the place where I was working as a Research Assistant started hiring more students. The number of desis in our unit trebled. A perpetual aroma of desi cooking settled down in the Lab and refused to leave. I remember settling at a mainframe terminal, sniffing the keyboards and making a mental note to stop by Apoorva's home later for batatavadas. Our Professor stopped coming into our Lab. A month later she issued a memo that outlined basic courtesy to fellow lab rats. One prominent addition had been made from the memo we had all seen previously - buried under copious verbiage to cover liberal guilt was this message: "Please DO NOT smell"

Indian cooking comes with its set of challenges. Fry onions, singe some masala, roast some garlic - and you've pretty much created an aroma issue in your house. And as anyone who cooks can tell you, getting that stuff out of your house is hard. Especially if its 30F outside. Worse yet, desi aromas love fabrics! They love engulfing them, settling in them - I think there might be some molecular level bonding going on.

I remember buying rotis from a friendly neighborhood gujjuben a few years ago. I had fine tuned the entire routine - from entering the house, asking about the family, grabbing the rotis and handing over the cash - to under 3 minutes. And still I would have to dump my clothes in the laundry after I got home and shampoo furiously the next day.

Indian food aromas are like Lindsay Lohan: fast and clingy.

So what is a desi to do? I've seen people exercise a number of options.

Stop Cooking! Although you'd think this isn't a realistic option, some people actually do use it. Snooty cowards! Let's ignore them and carry on.

Bake Cookies After! This is not a good option. Cookies vs Indian Food is basically a no-contest. There is no cookie on earth that can stand up to Indian cooking. Often people will have to bake dozens of cookies just to counter the rassam they just made. These cookies, when consumed later, create their own set of issues - but those are peripheral to this post.

Use an Air Freshener! Another option used frantically by many desis but largely ineffective. Air Freshener vs Indian Food is another no-contest. Plus you pump the air in your home full of all kinds of chemicals. Pretty soon even the roaches start coughing.

Invest in a good vent! This is a reasonably sensible option, probably mostly because I've settled on it. We have two types of vents in our house. One 3000 cfm Vent Hood Fan that spits the air out of the house via a duct. And a Whole House Fan that does reasonably well in terms of clearing the air from the entire house in under 15 minutes.

Bollywood Playback Face-off: Will Mohit Chauhan eat KK's lunch?

2009-04-09T00:09:00.008-05:00

In the sharply competitive, shifting sands of the world of Bollywood music, Mohit Chauhan is having a moment.

He's steadily wiggled himself into the mind space of several music composers - key to getting steady work in playback. He's delivered a few good hits. He now gets considered for A-list work, thus perpetuating more hits.

And in the middle of all this, as icing on the cake - he started off A. R. Rahman's highly acclaimed soundtrack to Delhi 6 with a tune so catchy, it stuck to the back of EVERYONE's ears. Not only was Masakali a huge hit, but it was a much beloved one. More importantly, it made people ask "Who is that singer?" and compelled them to remember the answer.

Increasingly the feeling I get is that KK's reign as the Bollywood King of Mainstream Playback might be under serious threat. And I'll tell you why.

At the outset Mohit and KK appear to be very different singers. Often because Mohit has sung a lot of ballads in his career - he is referred to as a singer with a silken voice. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Mohit's voice as a matter of fact, has more depth than that. It's a burr of a voice and carries a certain leaden weight, more like cloth woven with strands of washed denim. Its his strength - it allows Mohit to infuse his singing with a variety of emotions.

One other thing worth considering - in all the singing I've heard from Mohit, his singing leans towards more traditional Indian singing. It could be part of his training. He is most at ease when negotiating the wiggles in Indian notes. Often he'll sing straight pop numbers like a ghazal singer.

KK couldn't be a more different singer in some ways. Compared to Mohit, his voice is practically uni-dimensional. But KK has two things going for him - he possesses a breezy, stylish voice and he can hit those straight notes with an unforced ease. Both these bits combined make him an ideal singer for modern day songs. (You'll hear people say KK has tremendous range. What I think people really mean is that KK can sing a wide variety of songs available to singers in Bollywood today).

But the type of songs that will be made available to both - will be similar in the filmi music duniya. Most songs available to male singers today fall into well worn categories. There is (1) the rock song (2) the pop ballad (3) the dance dhamaka and (4) the comedy romp. Sure there are other genres of music in films today - but its a mere smattering.

Of the four types of songs, strike out (4) for this simple reason: comedies operate on a smaller budget (unless its a rare sequel like Golmaal Returns). This implies a new-ish (read: economic) music director with a smaller budget. So singers like Mohit Chauhan and KK are a little out of the financial range of this genre in most cases.

KK plays in all three genres that are left. But Mohit's full throated voice is ideal for (1) the rock song and (2) the pop ballad. He'll end up scoring over KK in both these categories. So expect more work to go his way in these areas.

This leaves (3) the dance dhamaka. KK will still do well here because his voice bears the frothiness required to carry off this genre. Sure there is Neeraj Shridhar to contend with in this space, but Neeraj's voice isn't entirely convincing when matched up with some of the Bollywood superstars (they tend to look a little puny when they sing in Neeraj's voice). KK - on the other hand - sounds great when matched up with just about anyone.

Most fortuitously for us, the soundtrack of Sikandar gives us some fascinating data to play with. Both singers have sung essentially two songs with the same lyrics - a drink-of-life reflection called 'Gulon Mein'. Mohit takes a crack at the more ruminative version composed by Justin-Uday. KK renders the breezier version composed by Sandesh Shandilya.

It's a rare chance to listen to two competing singers bring their craft in compositions that play to their respective strengths. If you'll give each one a careful listen, you'll be able to understand both singers better. I recommend you do that before placing your bets.

Regardless of the outcome of this delicious match up, singers called Atif Aslam should definitely start praying.

KK's other most recent songs:
Chand Zameen Pe (42 kms)
Aisa To Socha Na Tha (Victory)
Mere Khuda (Sorry Bhai)

Mohit's other most recent songs:
Haafiz Khuda (8x10 Tasveer)
Kuchh Khaas - with Neha Bhasin (Fashion)
Is This Love - with Shreya Ghoshal (Kismet Konnection)

One bad joke on Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa 3

2009-04-07T10:04:00.002-05:00

Just when I thought there was a crack creative team behind this year's guilty pleasure Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa 3, the entire show took a massive hit in terms of tacky potential. How so? Allow me to explain.

Last week the producers decided to add Koena Mitra to the list of contestants. This happens all the time on other shows - although with indifferent results. On the other hand, Koena - who looks uncannily like an Indian Barbie Doll (the hairline! the eyebrows!) - instantly ignited the show.

First, there were the credentials. Koena once shook her tushy in a bid to impress Sanjay Dutt while singing deeply philosophical lines like "What good is a drunk who isn't drunk?" Later she tried to seduce Anil Kapoor by washing his car. Yes, the girl has paid all kinds of dues.

On JDJ, she instantly went about cutting contestants down to size ("I'm a bigger star than Karan") and establishing alliances with others ("Ram is so cute!"). She made a bid to steal Monica Bedi's choreographer (Javed Sanadi - arguably the most compelling dancer on this show). She did all of this with a delicious nonchalance that whetted my appetite for TV trash.

And Hells Bells! She turned out to be a pretty good dancer. Dressed in a skimpy skirt and honking white boots, she danced like a slinky and devoured the camera like Lindsay Lohan. And then what happens in the results episode? She announces to everyone that she really isn't on the show but came on as an elaborate April Fool's joke. This is a terrible prank to play on audiences! It's like telling a terminally ill kid that new tests have revealed he will live and then saying "Sorry, kid. April Fool!"

This disrespect for audiences can only be atoned for by bringing Koena back and making her a permanent fixture on this show. Until then, I'm giving the entire JDJ team the Nirupa Roy grade - i.e. C minus.

Then there was this other excellent controversy - that is being handled rather poorly I might add - Gauhar Khan despising her choreographer, the rather hapless Hanif Hilal.

Early on, Gauhar - who has a laser focussed ambition and is a wee bit self-absorbed like any good model should be - let it be known that she wasn't happy being paired with Hanif. Especially after the man went out and announced that he wasn't good at "Bollywood Dance". JDJ revolves around Bollywood dance. And Gauhar is a kick-ass dancer. So this wasn't a good match up.

Gauhar refused to make lemonade with the lemon she'd been handed (and I use the word "lemon" from her perspective here). Hanif didn't help matters by not sensing what was important to Gauhar and working to make her comfortable. This resulted in a minor credit hogging controversy and major bad blood. Gauhar kept bursting into tears and acquired the reputation of a drama queen. Hanif tried to smile through it all with grace. Both resembled a couple on a very bad blind date. Much squirm inducing fun ensued.

This storm even had its own calm before. Then Hanif messed up a song mix. This made Gauhar unhappy because she felt it was too short. And it made countless of Gauhar fans unhappy because Gauhar decided to unleash a belly dance to that song that - as a result - didn't last long. (It evoked the following comment from Saroj Khan: "Kya chali hai tumhari kamar!").

Unfortunately Hanif had injured his leg during that same routine and ended up executing a brave, if farcical one-legged dance. Later using the ghisa pitaa "kayanaath" line from Om Shanti Om, he implied that Gauhar might have ill-willed the injury on him.

Just when I couldn't get enough of all of this, the whole thing came crashing down with the producers granting Gauhar's request for a Hanif replacement.

The jury is out on this one. Not in terms of whether this was right or wrong - I couldn't care less. It's just that while the ending of this arrangement saddened me, I would like to see the new bakra that arrives.