Thursday, November 17, 2011

Drama and Logic

    It is said that the makers of the classic Devadasu (ANR,1953) faced a dilemma while recording the songs. Jagame maya (జగమే మాయ బ్రతుకే మాయ) song had come out very well but they had some apprehensions about going with it in the final cut. Their logic was a drunkard speaks only gibber and words are mostly slurred. Here was a song full of wisdom, and the depressed drunk was singing it melodiously, will the audience accept.  Finally they went with it and the rest as they say it is history. As RGV quotes Alfred Hitchcock in one of his idiosyncratic reactions in his blog this is case of  “where drama begins logic ends”. Guess nobody questioned about the drunk being able to sing so flawlessly. RGV in the same answer brings up some more such instances from Shiva, Satya and Rangeela, where drama overtook logic. In another blog post, “Sculpting Emotions” he has this to say “The Director amalgamates all the arts into one wholesome experience which is intended to create an emotional impact on the audience. Watching a film should be an emotional experience. It should either make you laugh, or make you cry, or make you scared or make you feel like falling in love etc. A director’s craftsmanship is about his ability to create those moments. Crafting a scene is what for me is what purely the technical merit of a director should be judged by.

One Director who brings out the emotions so well is none other than SS Rajamouli. He is rightly called as Jakkanna for the way in which he sculpts his scenes.  In Magadheera, the emotions were brought out to the peaks in confrontation scenes between Bhairava and Sherkhan.

Sherkhan: ఎయి భైరవ,యువరాణిని వీడికిస్తానని మాటిచ్చా , దాన్ని తీసుకొచ్చి వీడి వొళ్ళో పెట్టి నా కాళ్ళకి సలాం కొట్టి పో , నిన్ను ప్రాణాలతో వదిలేస్తా
Bhairava: నేనూ నీకు మాటిస్తున్నా షేర్ఖాన్, ఆ రాజద్రోహి ని నాకప్పగించు, నిన్ను నీ సైన్యాన్ని ప్రాణాలతో వదిలేస్తా
Maansingh: శాహ్బాష్
Sherkhan: నాకు ప్రాణ బిక్ష పెడతావ, ఖుదా హు మే. నీ వొంట్లో రోషముంటే నీ కథలో నిజముంటే నా మనుషుల్ని వంద మంది ని పంపిస్తా దాని వంటి మీద చేయి పడకుండా ఆపు ఈ రాజ్యాన్ని ఆ రాణిని నీకే అప్పచెబుతా
Bhairava: వెన్ను చూపని వీరుల్ని ఏరుకుని మరీ పంపించు
Sherkhan: వాళ్ళను చూస్తేనే నువ్వు సగం చస్తావురా
Bhairava: ఎక్కువైనా పర్వాలేదు లెక్క తక్కువ కాకుండా చూసుకో
Sherkhan: వంద లో ఒక్కడు మిగిలిన నువ్వు ఒడినట్టే రా
Bhairava: ఒక్కొకన్ని  కాదు షేర్ఖాన్  వంద మంది ని ఒకేసారి రమ్మను

It is so popular that, if Lakshmi had to show action episodes of Rajamouli movies in her talk show with the director this was one of them. One testimony is the spoofs of this scene. Even in recent Dookudu, MS spoof says this ఒక్కొకన్ని  కాదు షేర్ఖాన్  వంద మంది ని ఒకేసారి రమ్మను

The point is, even if Sherkhan wanted to send 100 soldiers at a time he couldn’t have, as the pathway in front of them is so narrow, we see soldiers marching in pairs or at the max. only four would have marched at a time. So if Bhairava was serious about what he said he should have walked to the otherside or he should have waited till the 100 soldiers reached his side and started his fight. But everything is forgotten in the heat of emotion and subsequent fight sequence.Thats where Hitchcock's wisdom comes in “where drama begins logic ends”.

Now, all this looks so silly because the scene is so dramatic and  impact is so high, that if anybody had pointed out this then, would have made a fool of himself. Now that I have made one out of myself, I’ll rest my case.

http://rgvzoomin.com/sculpting-emotions/#
http://rgvzoomin.com/my-reactions-to-reactions-70/

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

ఏమంటివి ఏమంటివీ NTR dialogue in DVSK

Ever since I watched Rana say this dialogue in an interview, I wanted to get hold of the text for the same. I was searching for NTR's DVSK dialogue in Telugu but couldn't find one. Wanted to read it badly and only managed to get it in English. Now that I am smitten by the transliteration bug, thought I will transliterate it myself and here it is, enjoy.

ఆగాగు, ఆచార్య  దేవ హహహహ  హా  
ఏమంటివి  ఏమంటివీ , జాతి  నెపమున  సూత  సుతునకిందు నిలువ  అర్హత  లేదందువ? హ ఎంతమాట  ఎంతమా.ట 
ఇది  క్షాత్ర  పరీక్ష  కాని  క్షత్రియ  పరీక్షా  కాదే , కాదు  కాకూడదు,  ఇది కుల  పరీక్ష ఏ యందువ ,
ని  తండ్రి భరద్వాజుని జననమేట్టిది, అతి  జుగుప్సాకరమైన  నీ  సంభవమేట్టిది, మట్టి  కుండలో  పుట్టితివి  కదా  హహహ నిది  ఎ  కులమూ? 
ఇంత ఎలా? 
అస్మత్పితామహుడు  కురుకుల  వృద్దుడైన  ఈ శాంతనవుడు శివసముద్రల  భార్యయగు  గంగా గర్భమున  జనియించలేదా హహహ ? ఈయనదే  కులమో? హ్మ్ హ్మ్ హహాహ 
నాతో చెప్తుంటివేమయ్య ? 
మా  వంశమునకు  మూలపురుషుడైన  వశిష్టుడు  దేవ  వేశ్య  యగు    ఊర్వశీ పుత్రుడు  కాడా ? ఆతడు  పంచమ  జాతి  కన్యయైన  అరుంధతి  యందు  శక్తిని , ఆ  శక్తి   ఛండాలాంగన యందు  పరాశరుని , ఆ  పరాశరుడు  పల్లె  పడుచైన  మత్స్యగంధి యందు  మా  తాత  వ్యాసుని , ఆ  వ్యాసుడు  విధవరాండ్రైన  మా  పితామహి అంబికతో  మా  తండ్రిని , పినపితామహి అంబాలికతో  మా  పినతండ్రి  పాండురాజును, మా  ఇంటి  దాసితో  ధర్మ  నిర్మాణ  చరుడని  మీచే కీర్తించబడుతున్న  హ ఈ  విధుర దేవుని  కనలేదా? హహహాహ 
సందర్భావసరములను  బట్టి  క్షేత్ర , బీజ ప్రధాన్యములతో  సంకరమైన  మా  కురువంశము ఏనాడో   కుల  హీనమైనది .కాగా నేడు ఖు.లము  ఖు..లము అను   వియర్థ (వ్యర్థ)  వాదమెందులకు ? 

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Buddha -- graphic novel by Osamu Tezuka

First of all a big thanks to my friend Punya for introducing me to Osamu Tezuka's graphic novel Buddha. Only books I have read on Buddha are  Herman Hesse's brilliant `Siddhartha` and Pankaj Mishra's, complex but compelling read `An end to suffering`. I have enjoyed reading both of them. But, for me none of them was as engrossing as Osamu Tezuka's `Buddha`.

Osamu Tezuka is Japanese manga artist. He is famously known as God/Father of manga, sometimes Godfather of manga. His popular works include Astroboy, Kimba the white lion, Pheonix and some such. Unfortunately most of his work is not yet translated from Japanese.


`Buddha` is a eight a eight volumed series namely 1.Kapilavastu, 2.The Four Encounters, 3.Devadatta, 4.The Forest of Uruvela, 5.Deer Park, 6.Ananda, 7.Prince Ajatasattu and 8.Jetavana. Publishers have done a commendable job by bringing each volume in unique appealing colour on the cover.


One day Punya just like that, he had never mentioned that he had such a series nor had we talked about it, gives me volume one of the series and asks me to read. I took time to finish the first one and some more time to finish the next volume. After that there was no stopping. Now I am done reading the 5 vols, rest 3 will be finishing very soon.

Buddha's life as such is very interesting. Osamu has added a couple of fictional characters and made it more dramatic. Illustrations are beautiful, characters are full of life and with free flowing pace this `Buddha` is a gradually endearing one. Great books are easy to read and difficult to get over the lingering feeling they leave on your minds. Great books also leave a void when you are finished reading them. This is exactly what  `Buddha` is doing to me with each volume. Felt happy to see Siddhartha Basu recommending this series in one of the NDTV's Just books programme, long before I started reading them. Indeed its a priced acquisition. Mind you its highly addictive.

First installment of the 3-part animation film based on the series is released earlier this year. Take a look at the trailer here.

Monday, August 29, 2011

Norwegian Wood

       There are some authors who bank on meticulous research for their stories. Then there are authors who believe imagination to be their main strength. Murakami is a kind of author who doesn't want to spoil his imagination by going to the places he wants to write about. Haruki Murakami, theatre arts major, suddenly had the inspiration to write his first novel while watching a baseball game. With Norwegian wood, Murakami tasted unprecedented success. Success which shocked him and put him into depression to some extent. To avoid the craziness of his super stardom, he had to flee Japan for a few years.

       Norwegian Wood is a love story, amidst student movement, set in late 1960's. The story has all the elements- tenderness, passion, longing and loss, to make a perfect youthful love story. Quirky humour and casual conversation between the characters about varied topics like books, music, sex and weather makes this book an interesting read.

       Norwegian wood, named against a Beatles song, listening to which the protagonist Toru Watanabe's memories take him back to his student days and his first love Naoko. Naoko is his best friend kizuki's girlfriend. Their relationship is complicated, which Toru himself finds it difficult to explain at times. To make things even more complicated, enters a vibrant girl Midori into Toru's life. Reiko and Nagasawa friends of Naoko and Toru respectively make up other interesting characters. All the characters are different and complex, yet so similar and simple. Rest of the story is about the choice Toru has to make between the two women in his life.

       One can find a lot of symbolism in Murakami's style of writing. One such, which is interesting is, after a steamy eventful night Naoko disappears from Toru's life. Later, one night, Toru sets free a firefly from a bottle, which is a gift from his roommate. As the insect flies, Toru muses, "Long after the firefly had disappeared, the trail of its light remained inside me, its pale, faint glow hovering on and on in the thick darkness behind my eyelids like a lost soul", a metaphor, which perfectly describes  Toru's longing for Naoko.

       Jay Rubin has done a commendable job of translating it into English. Independent on Sunday rightly puts it as "This book is undeniably hip".

PS :- When I was going through my old files I found this review which I had written some four years back. Norwegian Wood is the second Murakami book I had read then after Wild Sheep Chase.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

My Petty Treasure

Satya sai's wealth was still a national debate and media was speculating the actual numbers. Soon came the news of Padmanabha swamy temple's treasure. Still one chamber is to be opened. This incredible wealth could buy nations or eradicate poverty for a change. Mere seeing the pictures of Padmanabha swamy's wealth in chain mails made me go dizzy. It was so overwhelming that even I wanted to open some treasure desperately. Off I went to open the only treasure I have, some petty coins I have collected since childhood. Not very long ago I had added some coins from my brother's collection. I was not very familiar with the recent additions. So here I was looking at each coin carefully and dreaming how Padmanabha swamy temple officials would chase me to exchange the coins with the temple's  treasures and how I would refuse. Nice dream !!

Most of my collection is made of coins from 80's and 90's. Some of pre-independence era. Few international coins and one or two dating back to 1850's East India Company coins. one coin has Urdu or Arabic all over it and I cannot make head or tail out it.



One particular coin left me clueless. Looking at it gives an ancient feel to it. Date is not there, if it was there it is completely wiped out. Script on it is Devanagari but nothing is readable. Portrayals on it resembled Hindu rulers. So I expected it to be a pre-British era coin. I wanted to know more about it and I couldn't keep it out of my mind. After one or two days when I was discussing coins with my friends this came up. One friend when he saw it next day, suggested it could be a coin from Nepal. Hence my search started with Nepal coins. There were many interesting coins but nothing similar came out. I went back to my original assumption and started looking in pre-British era coins. List was too big to search from. Nothing was remotely matching and it was leading nowhere. I had to change my search strategy. Took a long look at the coin and typed what I was seeing, `person holding trishul`, `Shiva with trishul` and some other combinations. Some of the search combinations lead me back to Nepal coins. But that was not what I was looking for. I flipped the coin where it had four persons. So guessing wildly I typed `coins with Rama and his brothers`. Bingo!! It led me to what I was looking but not exactly the same. It was an Aha moment and I was amazed to see what I was looking for. I would have definitely refused to exchange the coin for world's treasures at that moment.



So what I had with me was a coin or sometimes called temple token known as Rama Tanka. I started to like this name as well. It is Rama and Lakshmana on one side which I had mistook for Shiva and Parvathi looking at what looked like a Trishul. On the other side it is the Rama darbar. I had not at all noticed the Hanuman until I looked at the pictures. Stupid of me to have missed it.

Rama Tanka is supposed to be worshipped  in Hindu households to celebrate the legend of Rama and passed on to next generations. There are genuine ancient coins and modern reproductions. Mine looks like a modern reproduction, but I am not sure. I had never seen a Rama Tanka or heard about it before. When I searched for Rama Tanka I could find a very similar coin to that of mine. I am still clueless about the exact date when this was minted and I have no idea how to figure it out also. On the whole, Searching wildly without knowing what I had with me and discovering it as Rama Tanka was a liberating experience.

Referred links:
http://www.coinquest.com/cgi-bin/cq/coins?main_coin=521&main_ct_id=54
http://psrraju1953.blogspot.com/2010/09/rama-tanka-coins-hstory.html

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Jai Ho Doordarshan

Those were the days when TV watching was celebrated. I can reminisce about those times very fondly. I stumbled upon this website which took me back in time and even after coming back the sweet memories are still lingering. For all those DD fans out there this one is sure to bring back the memories. You'll find everything
about DD here commercials, serials and what not. Thanks a ton for those of you, who are maintaining the site.  http://ddnational.blogspot.com/

I still remember vividly. My first brush with TV happened on an unfortunate day of 30th Oct 1984. Mrs Indira Gandhi was shot and children were let off from schools. I didn't know who Indira Gandhi was and I must say I was happy. There was excitement in the air about the live telecast of the proceedings. My brother
who is 10 years elder to me and his friends were planning to go 3 colonies away to watch television in a doctors house who was treating my mother. I happily and silently tagged along. There was already huge crowd, all unknown faces. With my brother's lobbying we could get in after Maneuvering through the crowd. My expectation was to see Mrs Gandhi being shot but all I could see was only people and glimpse of demised PM. I was disappointed.

Within a years time we bought a brand new TV. We were the first in our locality to buy a TV. Dynora black and white. Initially it took some time to get a hang of what’s going on. We would gather before the telecast time and watch from the National DD signature

http://ddnational.blogspot.com/search/label/DD%20National%20Signature

Most of the times we ended up watching all the boring programmes. News was the first thing we were hooked on to, then we caught up with 9PM serials. From then on the pattern of TV watching kept changing based on the programmes aired, nevertheless we were hooked.

Sunday’s were truly exciting times and lived upto the expectation of a  holiday. Now it’s cliche to say but still it is Ramayan which caught the imagination of the masses. Started witnessing the crowds that I mentioned earlier in our house itself . The hall which could accommodate 20 people would be filled by 40 people and
we kids used to sit lap on lap in a window opposite to the TV. That was our balcony seat. More than Ramayan it was the anticipation of watching and the congregation that excited me. The scene would be similar for Vikram-bethal followed by  Sunday evening Hindi movie.

After Ramayan our kid gang was eager to watch He-man, Mickey mouse, Duck tales, Ek do teen char, spiderman, Indradhanush. No other program series has brought out the feeling of patriotism in me than Param vir chakra till now. We kids were amazed by the valour and sacrifice shown by these great soldiers. After watching we kids used go out and enact the war and shooting stuff. Used to be such fun. Thanks to Chetan and Ketan Anand for this brilliant one. Don’t want to say anything about the theme song. Just listen..

http://ddnational.blogspot.com/search/label/Param%20Vir%20Chakra

Watching news for hearing impaired was fun and we used imitate the lady. I also liked the stone boy theme. Not to mention Mahabharat, Malgudi days, Dada dadi ki kahaniyan , Nukkad, Yeh jo hai Zindagi and many many more...

Commercials were a huge hit with us. Cinkara, Dabur chaywanprash, Dinesh suitings, Digjam Rasna, Vicco, Vicks, Vimal  and many more. Kapil was a national favorite and palmolive ka jawab nahin is my personal favorite.  Repeating the catch lines was a favorite pass time.

Unlike todays glamourous and biased news presenters we had Salma sultana with only one expression for any news. Personalities like Narrotham Puri, Siddhartha Basu, Anuradha podwal, Shekhar Kapur, Arun Govil, Deepika, Dara Singh, Gavaskar, Puneet Issar, Master Manjunath were all household names

My grandmother was a true TV buff, she always tried to duplicate the cinema environment in our house. She used to fry sunflower seeds and salt them. For all prime time programs these were shared with any body who had patience to munch them while watching TV. In summers it was Musk melon and Water melon seeds. One
should see with how much patience she used to collect, clean and  dry them. Always house almost looked like a theatre after the crowd left. Occasionally it used be groundnuts. Rarely we used to serve rasna which in itself was a daunting task.

to be continued....